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UNBALANCED SCHEDULES AND THE ESTIMATION OF COMPETITIVE BALANCE IN THE SCOTTISH PREMIER LEAGUE
Author(s) -
Lenten Liam J. A.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
scottish journal of political economy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.4
H-Index - 46
eISSN - 1467-9485
pISSN - 0036-9292
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9485.2008.00463.x
Subject(s) - league , balance (ability) , schedule , football , economics , econometrics , sample (material) , set (abstract data type) , statistics , mathematics , computer science , geography , psychology , physics , management , astronomy , neuroscience , chemistry , archaeology , chromatography , programming language
Since the season ending in 2001, the Scottish Premier League (SPL) has, unlike other European football leagues, utilised an unbalanced schedule, by which the strongest teams in a given season play each other an extra time, mutatis mutandis for the weakest teams. While this approach may make sense for several reasons, it also has implications for within‐season measures of competitive balance, because it creates biases in the set of win ratios from the end‐of‐season league table. This paper applies a simple log‐probability rule to calculate a set of adjusted win ratios correcting for this inherent bias. Such an adjustment is necessary if one wishes to compare within‐season competitive balance of the SPL with other European leagues. It is shown that by correcting for the unbalanced schedule, the SPL is consistently less competitive over the sample period. The implications of this finding are discussed at length.