Competitive Balance in Team Sports: The Scoring Context, Referees, and Overtime

This paper focuses on a qualitative comparison between European football and U.S. team sports with respect to the effects of the number of goals per match, impartial errors of the referee, and overtime versus ties on the natural level of competitive balance. The more goals and the more perfect the referee, the more drastic are the measures needed to maintain competitive balance. Taking into account that the optimal level of competitive balance is lower in open leagues than in closed leagues, the combined effect of these factors may explain why in U.S. team sports special measures are in force to maintain competitive balance, which are absent in Europe.