Competitive Balance NFL

NFL Scheduling and Competitive Balance

In this paper (now forthcoming, JSE: doi: 10.1177/1527002512471538), it was shown that for every single year after the expansion to 32 teams in 2002 (until 2011), the NFL was even more competitively balanced when the strength of schedule was accounted for, without exception, using four common CB measures. Previous The Sports Economist posts on this are here and here.

Since the 2013 regular season has just been completed, we crunched the numbers on the two most recent seasons. The streak remains unbroken, once again demonstrating the importance of adjusting CB measures for unbalanced schedules.

2012:

Standard Deviation Ratio: 1.5245 (unadjusted); 1.4645 (adjusted)

Herfindahl Index of CB:  1.1453 (unadjusted); 1.1340 (adjusted)

Concentration (12) Ratio:  1.4010 (unadjusted); 1.3889 (adjusted)

Gini Coefficient:  0.2776 (unadjusted); 0.2647 (adjusted)

2013:

Standard Deviation Ratio: 1.5271 (unadjusted); 1.4396 (adjusted)

Herfindahl Index of CB:  1.1458 (unadjusted); 1.1295 (adjusted)

Concentration (12) Ratio:  1.4063 (unadjusted); 1.3904 (adjusted)

Gini Coefficient:  0.2776 (unadjusted); 0.2590 (adjusted)

Liam Lenten is a Senior Lecturer in the School Economics at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. Liam’s current research agenda is wide-ranging in the discipline, spanning from forecasting models to sports economics. Liam has held recent visiting positions at MIT and University of Michigan, and has previously published about 20 articles in peer-refereed journals.