Parity in European football leagues

Characters 81.900

Written by Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira Supervised by Claus Jensen





Table of contents 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT .............................................................................................................................. 3 2. BACKGROUND AND THEORY ............................................................................................................... 4 2.1 METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................................................... 9 2.1.1 Data collection ...................................................................................................................................... 10 3. COMPETITIVE BALANCE IN THE “BIG FIVE” EUROPEAN LEAGUES ........................ 12 3.1 SPEARMAN RHO AND N-S METRIC .................................................................................................... 13 3.2 LIGUE 1 ........................................................................................................................................................ 15 3.3 BUNDESLIGA .............................................................................................................................................. 16 3.4 SERIE A ........................................................................................................................................................ 18 3.5 LA LIGA ......................................................................................................................................................... 19 3.6 PREMIER LEAGUE .................................................................................................................................... 21 3.7 FINDINGS | “BIG FIVE” EUROPEAN FOOTBALL LEAGUES ........................................................... 22 4. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF “OTHER” LEAGUES .............................................................. 24 4.1 NFL ............................................................................................................................................................... 24 4.2 MLS ............................................................................................................................................................... 27 4.3 A-LEAGUE ................................................................................................................................................... 29 4.4 PREMIERSHIP RUGBY ............................................................................................................................. 30 4.5 FINDINGS | “OTHER” LEAGUES ............................................................................................................ 31 5. CAN UEFA IMPLEMENT CROSS SUBSIDIZATION SCHEMES IN EUROPEAN FOOTBALL LEAGUES? ................................................................................................................................. 33 6. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................................ 40 APPENDIX 1 ......................................................................................................................................................... 42 APPENDIX 2 ......................................................................................................................................................... 43 APPENDIX 3 ......................................................................................................................................................... 44 APPENDIX 4 ......................................................................................................................................................... 45 REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................................................... 46





Parity in European football leagues

1. Introduction In the last two decades, if we take a summary of the European football leagues, we can observe that the league's champions don’t vary much, although there are generally a large number of teams in each league or competition. Imagine what are the consequences of Real Madrid CF and FC Barcelona alternately winning La Liga? What if in the Bundesliga one is almost sure from the beginning that the winning title is going to be decided between Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund or Borussia Mönchengladbach? Well, it is certain that it will bring a huge sense of achievement for their supporters, but what about the supporters from the other teams? Probably they will think that the league became boring because you always know what the result is going to be. In sport economics, this is called uncertainty of outcome and Knowles et al.1 stated that the uncertainty of outcome idea "is predicated on the assumption that fans receive more utility from observing contests with an unpredictable outcome, and posits that the more evenly team playing abilities are matched, the less certain the game's outcome and the greater the game's attendance will be". This is mainly shaped by the competitive imbalance within the leagues. The definition of competitive balance is according to Beech and Chadwick2: “the equality in the playing strengths of the teams in any league or cup competition”. The general idea that some authors have on this matter is that this imbalance is already happening for some long years. Therefore, we want to base this paper in the current issue of competitive imbalance in European football leagues. As there are many football leagues in Europe we will target the “big five” leagues (Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, Serie A)3, because they are the most relevant leagues, economically -, measure their long-term (inter-seasonal) competitive balance applying two existing indices, the Spearman Rho and the Noll-Scully metric. The purpose is then to compare 1

G. KNOWLES, K. SHERONY, and M. HAUPERT, The Demand for Major League Baseball: A Test of the Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis, The American Economist. 2 J. BEECH, S. CHADWICK, The Business of Sport Management. 3 Sports Business Group at Deloitte, Annual Review of Football Finance 2014

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

1 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

them with other leagues (A-League, Major League Soccer, National Football League, Premiership Rugby), not necessarily football, that have been implementing rules and cross subsidization schemes to increase parity in the competitions. The goal will not be to create a theoretical model to increase competitive balance, suitable for the European football leagues. However, while comparing all the leagues, it is expected to find some evidence and essential information of what and how it should be done. The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), is or should be the leading entity concerned with this issue, as it is the governing body of European football and since they state: “UEFA's mission is to promote, protect and develop European football at every level of the game, to promote the principles of unity and solidarity, and to deal with all questions relating to European football”4. Therefore, we will also relate the research with initiatives that UEFA already implemented to increase competitive balance, and what they could do more. ‘Among us, no one shall be the best; but if someone is, then let him be elsewhere and among others. Why should one be the best? Because then the contest would come to an end...’5 4 5

http://www.uefa.org/ F. NIETZSCHE (1977), The Portable Nietzsche, p. 36-37

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

2 of 47

Parity in European football leagues



1.1 Problem statement How can UEFA increase the competitive balance in European football?

The question above was formulated to be our fundamental research question. In the analysis showed in the project, it can be observed that the core concern is always to find conclusions, explanations, trends or even assumptions that can answer the fundamental research question, according to the data collected, knowledge and former articles.

Because it is a large issue, it was decided to specify the “path” of the fundamental research question into two sub-questions stated below:

a. How is the competitive balance in the “big five” European football leagues compared to leagues with cross-subsidization schemes? b. How can cross-subsidization schemes help UEFA increase the competitive balance among European football leagues?

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

3 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

2. Background and Theory 1. What is competitive balance? Why is it important? When looking into the Sport Economics research, one can find different terms of the competitive balance idea, even if the author sometimes doesn’t mention the exact name. Rottenberg 6 , founder of the Sport Economics research, said in 1956: “The nature of the industry is such that competitors must be of approximately equal ‘size’ if any are to be successful”. Referencing the importance of parity in sports competitions Janssens and Kesenne7 state the “sporting equality” as El-hodiri and Quirk8 talk about “equalization of competitive playing strengths”. Not naming the idea of competitive balance Topkis 9 discusses: “Baseball magnates are not fools. If anyone got together a group of perfect players, who would pay to see them play the other teams in the league?” A concise but complete definition of competitive balance is given to us by Beech and Chadwick 10 : “Competitive balance refers to the equality in the playing strengths of the teams in any league or cup competition”. When discussing the idea of competitive balance many authors also talk about the idea of uncertainty of outcome, as it is obvious that the first as an impact on the last. This suggests that the two concepts are interrelated. Nevertheless, other authors state that the concepts are comparable but actually mean different things. For instance, Forrest and Simmons11 say: “Competitive balance and uncertainty of outcome are two important, but easily conflated, concepts”. According to Michie and Oughton12, the more teams that are involved in a league with adjacent competitive capabilities, the more uncertain the outcome will be for each match. Consequently, the championship’s uncertainty of 6

S. ROTTENBERG, The baseball players’ labor market. P. JANSSENS, S. KESENNE, Belgian Soccer Attendances. 8 M. EL-HODIRI, J. QUIRK, An economic model of a professional sports league. 9 J. H. TOPKIS, Monopoly in Professional Sports. 10 J. BEECH, S. CHADWICK, The Business of Sport Management. 11 D. FORREST, R. SIMMONS, Outcome uncertainty and attendance demand in sport: the case of English soccer. 12 J. MICHIE, C. OUGHTON, Competitive Balance in Football: An Update. 7

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

4 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

outcome will be more, the more competitively equal the teams are. In a ‘dreamily’ balanced competition, every team should have the same equal opportunity of winning a match and subsequently the same equal opportunity of winning the competition. As previously discussed, the ideas of competitive balance and uncertainty of outcome are related. The second one is important for the first because it’s one of the sources of awareness and demand for supporters. A competitively imbalanced competition does not receive the maximum profit from consumers. So, generally it should be within the interest of the associations, leagues, governing bodies, teams’ owners, to create or adapt guidelines and rules to allocate equal as possible the profits and stimulate competitive balance. Competitively imbalanced leagues have an amplified probability of dealing with bankruptcy of minor-clubs, and therefore with a league's collapse. 2. How to measure competitive balance? There is no doubt that competitive balance is important. Besides, it is needed more or less among all sport leagues or competitions, including football, in this specific case: European football leagues. The question that one does not know what to answer is: How much competitive balance is really needed and tolerable? Fort and Quirk 13 also support this issue by mentioning that the problem for sports leagues is to set a level of competitive balance that is acceptable to supporters. In their article Cairns, Jennett and Sloane 14 present three types of competitive balance: short-term (individual matches); medium-term (intraseasonal) and long-term (inter-seasonal). If one wants to measure the long-term competitive balance, which is this paper’s case, there are some indicators that one can choose. For instance in 1989, Scully and Noll presented the Noll-Scully metric, that compares the actual performance (actual deviation) in a chosen 13

R. FORT, J. QUIRK, Cross-Subsidization, Incentives, and Outcomes in Professional Team Sports Leagues. 14 J. CAIRNS, N. JENNETT, P.J. SLOANE, The Economics of Professional Team Sports: A Survey of Theory and Evidence.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

5 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

league with the performance in the same but perfectly balanced league (idealised deviation). In 2002 Humphreys15 introduced the competitive balance ratio (CBR), including two constituents of competitive balance: intra-team (standard deviation of league points) and intra-season (standard deviation of team points). In 1964, Hirschman 16 created the Hirschman Index, which presents the concentration of turnover within a market. Later, in sport economics research, this was modified (by Depken17 in 1999 and by Michie and Oughton18 in 2004) to analyse competitive balance, named Hirschman index of competitive balance (HICB). Also in 2004, in their paper, Michie and Oughton presented the C5 index of competitive balance (C5ICB). Another indicator that can be used to measure competitive balance is given to us by Spearman19, named Spearman's rho or Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, and it is demonstrated by Manasis and Ntzoufras20. According to Zimbalist21, it isn’t easy to accurately measure competitive balance, since it is a multidimensional phenomenon. For that reason, he concludes that until that time there was no indicator that could measure all the dimensions of competitive balance. 3. What have other leagues/associations done to increase competitive balance? To combat the imbalance of the competitions, leagues have been generally implementing some systems. These systems are known by many authors as cross-subsidization schemes: drafting system, reserve-option clause, salary cap, revenue sharing (matchday, TV revenue). Some of these schemes have more impact in win-maximizing leagues/teams and others have

15

B. HUMPHREYS, Alternative Measures of Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues. O. HIRSCHMAN, The Paternity of an Index. 17 C. DEPKEN, Free Agency and the Competitiveness of MLB. 18 J. MICHIE, C. OUGHTON, Competitive balance in football: Trends and effects. 19 C. SPEARMAN, The proof and measurement of association between two things. 20 V. MANASIS, I. NTZOUFRAS, Between-seasons Competitive Balance in European Football: Review of Existing and Development of Specially Designed Indices. 21 A. S. ZIMBALIST, Competitive Balance Conundrums: Response to Fort and Maxcy's Comment. 16

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

6 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

more impact in profit-maximizing leagues. It depends on many factors, including the characteristics and structure of the league.



According to Fort and Quirk22 analysis, of which systems create more balance, they concluded that the only scheme that has a relevant and positive impact on competitive balance is salary cap. Even though it is not consistent with league-wide revenue maximization it can profit weak-drawing teams and strong-drawing teams. Although, revenue sharing can also bring competitive balance to leagues, depending on the way it is structured. The idea of implementing a cap for salary costs (different when compared with the North-American four main leagues) in European Football is not something that was never discussed. Back in 2002, BBC23 reported that the members of G-14 proposed a maximum limit for wages (salary top limit of 70% of a club's turnover), though the idea was never put in action. All the North-American five main leagues have in the meanwhile implemented a salary cap or a variant of the concept. The maximum amount (hard cap, soft cap) and minimum amount (salary floor) spent in salaries is negotiated between the teams’ owners and the players unions, and settled in Collective Bargaining Agreements, so that nobody trespasses the regulations. 4. UEFA and Financial Fair Play Probably inspired by the North-American major leagues, Europe’s football governing body UEFA, implemented in 2011 the so-called Financial Fair Play (FFP) Regulations, which basically obligates clubs to spend only money within their earnings. This was a consequence of massive financial losses suffered by many teams from the European football leagues. One of the reasons for the financial losses, was that many teams had to overspend in their budgets in order to compete against teams with wealthy owners, who inject colossal amounts of private money to reinforce their teams. According to UEFA’s website “clubs can spend up to €5 million more than they earn per 22

R. FORT, J. QUIRK, Cross-Subsidization, Incentives, and Outcomes in Professional Team Sports Leagues. 23 http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/2402329.stm

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

7 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

assessment period (three years)”24, which is called break-even calculation. If the clubs do not comply with this, UEFA's Club Financial Control Body measures or sanctions can be from a warning, a reprimand or a fine to disqualification from competitions or withdrawal of title or award. In the end, the objective of the rules is to reach financial stability (clubs without debts), not really to reach financial equality or competitive balance between the clubs, which has already been settled by some authors. In his article, Sass25 analyses the long-term progress of competitive balance and finds that FFP decreases competitive balance as small clubs will no longer overspend and invest their way to a better market size. Preuss et al.26 conclude that the FFP concept as it is until now, will neither regulate the rise of expenses nor secure a necessary level of competitive balance. They demonstrate that the rules only favour the big clubs while the development of small clubs is reduced. Kesenne27 states the same as Preuss, concluding that the FFP rules will increase the imbalance among the clubs in a league, due to the fact that small clubs have less turnover, making them more dependent to overinvest in better players to improve performance. While a hypothetical flat cap might allow clubs to compete more equally, a “relative” cap like the FFP will make it hard for the financially weak clubs to compete with the wealthier ones. 5. Competitive balance in European football According to Michie and Oughton28’s data, there is a defined trend for a competitive balance decrease from 1947 to 2005, in the Premier League. Using the C5 Index, the H-Index of competitive balance and a correlation between the wage expenditure and performance of the clubs they settled two main reasons for this trend: the promotion and relegation system (as not being an effective stratagem to enhance balance), and the massive rupture in wage outflow 24

http://www.uefa.com/community/news/newsid=2064391.html M. SASS, Long-term Competitive Balance under UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations. 26 H. PREUSS, K.K. Haugen, M. Schubert, UEFA Financial Fair Play: The Curse of Regulation. 27 S. KESENNE,The Salary Cap Proposal of the G-14 in European Football. 25

J. MICHIE, C. OUGHTON, Competitive Balance in Football: An Update.

28

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

8 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

between the top four or five clubs and the rest. Unfortunately, this trend is the general picture in European football leagues that we are going to show later. Besides these two reasons there can be added one more: the distribution arrangements from broadcasting rights, within the national leagues and European competitions such as UEFA Champions League and Europa League. There is an enormous gap in total income between the clubs that participate in UEFA competitions and the rest. Especially in the English clubs, because the value of the TV market (which is translated in the Market Pool prize money) is higher compared to other countries. According to UEFA29, Champions League’s total prize money for the 2015-16 season is around €1.257 billion, from which UEFA distributes to all the 32 participating clubs and the clubs that went through the play-offs. Clearly, one can say that this distribution may have an impact on competitive balance within the national leagues, as it gives the participating clubs a huge financial advantage, which is also concluded in Pawlowski’s et al.30 findings. However, when investigating former articles concerning competitive balance in European football leagues, one can find divergent conclusions and assumptions, what can mainly be explained by the authors studying different seasons and leagues. 2.1 Methodology The aim of this report is to look at European football and see if it is possible to increase the competitive balance of the leagues in Europe by implementing cross subsidization schemes. Based on an analysis of the “big five” leagues competitive balance and a similar analysis of 4 other leagues (ALeague, Major League Soccer, National Football League, Premiership Rugby) that uses cross subsidization schemes, there will be drawn conclusions on whether or not these schemes can be used in the European football leagues. If the conclusions should be in favour of implementing a cross subsidization 29

http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/news/newsid=1858497.html T. PAWLOWSKI, C. BREUER, A. HOVEMANN, The club’s performance and the competitive situation in European domestic football competitions.

30

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

9 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

scheme, this report can be used as a foundation for a future investigation on how the implementation of the schemes should be. 2.1.1 Data collection The competitive balance analysis is based on Spearman Rho Correlation Coefficient (Spearman Rho) and the Noll-Scully metric (N-S metric). The analysis could have included other competitive balance measures, but these two where chosen because they show the competitive balance of a league from season to season and within a single season respectively. Spearman Rho was calculated using the following formula:

The scale ranges from 0 to 1, which represents a dynamically perfectly balanced and a dynamically completely unbalanced league respectively. In order to use this measurement for the European leagues, which uses the promotion-relegation system, we have set forth a rule. In a league, with 20 teams, where 3 teams are relegated from and promoted to, the 1st place of the second league will correspond to the 18th place in the first league, 2nd to the 19th and 3rd represents the 20th place. In regards to those leagues that have a playoff system for promotion and relegation, the playoff winner will be ranked as 20th in a league of 20 teams. For the MLS, A-league and the Premiership Rugby, which have experienced a growing amount of teams in the league throughout the years, there has been made a rule as well. If one new team appear, it will be ranked in the last position, in the season prior to its entry in the league. The N-S metric has been calculated in 2 different ways depending on whether the league is a win-lose type, like the NFL, or if it’s a win-lose-tie league, like MLS. For the leagues that use the tie, the number of points replaced the wins.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

10 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

The following formula represents the calculation for the NFL:

The idealized standard deviation was calculated using the following formula:

The spearman Rho and N-S metric represent the primary data whereas the other data used in this assignment is secondary data, collected from different articles, books and sport business websites. Because there exist collection of primary data, we mainly support our findings empirically. By observing the data collected, we perceived patterns and trends that could lead us to hypotheses and theories that would answer our research question. Therefore the scientific approach for the project was inductive. The project is based on the analysis of the primary data. The analysis focuses on what we, as the researchers, have found relevant in answering the research question. The project is therefore written with an interpretivistic approach. It is also descriptive and explanatory research, because throughout the project we are focusing on describing (what) and explaining (why) the data. Because we try to solve a specific problem our research is identified as applied research.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

11 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

3. Competitive balance in the “big five” European leagues The Spanish, English, Italian and German teams have dominated European football competitions ever since the first European Champions Club’s Cup was played in the 1955/56 season. In the previous 10 seasons, all the finalists of the Champions League have come from these 4 countries. Furthermore it is the same 12 teams that have managed to reach the final throughout this period. In Europa league, former cup winners cup, the majority of the finalist came from the abovementioned countries throughout this time period. However, as explained previously then the French Ligue 1, will also be included in the following analysis to illustrate the development in competitive balance within the “big five” European football leagues. Ligue 1, Serie A, Premier league and La Liga consist of 20 teams, and every team play 38 games per season. The Bundesliga only consists of 18 teams and each team are therefore only playing 34 games per season. All the leagues have 3 relegation spots, but in the Bundesliga and Serie A they have a playoff system for the 3rd relegation spot. 16 rounds into the current season of the premier league (2015/16), the defending champions,

Chelsea

F.C.,

is

currently

positioned 16th in the league, with only 1 point down to a relegation spot. Leicester City, who promoted to the league in 2013/14, is positioned 1st and Watford; runner-up of the Championship in 2014/15 is positioned 7th. Bournemouth, another promoted team, beat the two giants and multiple Premier league champions, Chelsea and Manchester United, in their latest games. Source: Barclays Premier League

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira



12 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

Since 2004, Barcelona and Real Madrid have taken turns to win La Liga, until Atletico Madrid won it in 2013/14. This season Atletico Madrid is currently in 1st place alongside Barcelona.31 In the Italian Serie A, Internatizionale and AC Milan finished last season in 8th and 10th place respectively. These two teams have respectively won the Italian Championship 5 and 7 times within the last 20 years. The current league standings point towards a high level of competitive balance and a high uncertainty of outcome inside the leagues, when comparing it to previous years of dominance. But is this true? The simple answer is no. The teams have only played 16 out 38 games in England and as the American expression say “It is not over until the fat lady sings”, meaning that it is too early to conclude anything specific within the current season. However, in the next section there will follow an overview of the competitive balance over the past 10 seasons of the “big five” leagues, which will determine how the development of the competitive balance is for these leagues.

3.1 Spearman Rho and N-S metric The following part examines the competitive balance of the “big five” leagues using Spearman Rho and N-S metric. The calculations are constructed via the actual finished league tables. In appendix 1 there is a link for all the excel sheets, where the Spearman Rho and N-S metric have been calculated. In appendix 2 there is a graph showing the Spearman Rho for the “big five” leagues and in appendix 3 there is a graph illustrating the N-S metric. The Spearman Rho provides a good foundation for investigating competitive balance by observing the development of the final league standings year on year. The scale operates from 0 to 1, with 0 being perfect competitive balance and 1 being no competitive balance, meaning that the teams will finish in the same position for two consecutive seasons. Whereas the Spearman Rho 31

th

The current league standings for La Liga and Premier League were taken on the 14 of December 2015.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

13 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

shows the competitive balance measured over 2 seasons, then the N-S metric only focus on 1 season. By looking at the average number of wins per team, the number of teams in the league and the number of games each team play, it has been calculated how the league ideally should look like. This calculation is based on a league, which operates with a win-lose system. As the European football league, as well as the MLS and A-league are operating with a win-losetie system, then the calculation has been alternated in order to fit accordingly. The average amount of wins has therefore been replaced by the average amount of points. The N-S metric does not operate with any upper or lower boundaries as the Spearman Rho does. Instead it measures the actual performance of a league compared to the idealized performance of the same league. The idealized performance of a league, is that of which all teams are equal and where the competitive balance is perfect. If the N-S metric is above 1 then the league is more imbalanced than the ideal league. If the score is below 1 then the league is closer than the ideal league. This means that an ideal league is not one where everyone finishes with the same amount of wins or points. The N-S metric will therefore provide a picture of how competitive the league is for the current season. Before taking a closer look at

Average

Average

Spearman Rho

N-S metric

Ligue 1

0.77

1.60

Bundesliga

0.78

1.73

Serie A

0.79

1.90

La Liga

0.82

1.90

Premier

0.87

2.01

League

each leagues performance over the past 10 seasons it is worth noticing

that

for

both

the

measurements, Ligue1 is the most competitive, then followed by Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga and finally the least competitive league is the Premier League.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

League

Source: Own production

14 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

The number of different national champions supports

for this.

each

league

The

French

league has had 6 different national champions within these 10 seasons. The Bundesliga has had 4, while Serie A, La Liga and Premier League all have

3

different

national

champions. Based on the pas 20 years the tendency is even

Source: Own production

clearer, with Ligue 1 having 10 different champions while the Premier League only have 4.

3.2 Ligue 1 The Spearman Rho is fairly stable throughout the 10-year period with a maximum deviation of 0.08 from its average. In the first year of this data collection the Spearman Rho scored just above average with 0.79 and the last year it reached its highest number at 0.85. Comparing Ligue 1 to the Premier League, there is one major difference between the two leagues. Whereas Premier League has had the same 5 teams finishing in the top 5 almost every year, the Ligue 1 has experienced a lot of different teams in the top 5. Furthermore, there have been 6 different winners of the French league compared to only 3 in the Premier League. The French league can be divided into three periods. The first period consists of the first 3 seasons, where Lyon won the championship 3 consecutive years in a row. The 4 seasons in the middle is the second period. Within this period there were 4 different winners of the league. The third period consists of the last 3 seasons where PSG won the league every season. Despite this, there are no major changes and the Spearman Rho does not

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

15 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

indicate that a new champion every season has made the league more balanced than having the same winner several years in a row. The N-S metric for Ligue 1 deviates more than the Spearman Rho. If we look at the 3 periods again then the leagues table was closer during Lyons 3 consecutive championships than when there was a new winner every year. This indicates that even though Lyon were dominating the league throughout this period, then the rest of the teams were much more competitive balanced through these 3 seasons. There is not a clear trend as the N-S metric fluctuates too much. However, in the second season measured it hit a low of 1.24 and its highest point in the ninth season measured, which indicates that the league is becoming more unbalanced. PSG and Monaco became members of the billionaire football clubs in 2011 when Qatar Sports Investments and Dmitry Rybolovlev bought them respectively, thereby giving the clubs much more money to invest in the future success. In 2013/14, when the N-S metric was at its highest, PSG won the league in front of Monaco and finished 66 points in front of the last team in the league, which is the biggest difference throughout the 10 seasons. The tendency for the French league is currently that it is becoming more imbalanced due to the league being dominated by the financially strongest teams. This can be associated with Michie and Oughton’s32 findings regarding the Premier League.

3.3 Bundesliga The Bundesliga score an average of 0.78 but unlike the French league it deviates up to 0.20 from its average. In the first season measured, it scored 0.90 whereas it scored 0.92 in the latest season. This means that it has not changed a lot over the 10-year period. For the first 6 seasons they seemed to have cracked the code on how to increase the competitive balance and uncertainty of outcome from season to season. The first 6 years the Spearman Rho decreased every year until it hit 0.58 in 2010/11. After this season the 32

J. MICHIE, C. OUGHTON, Competitive Balance in Football: An Update, 1-10.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

16 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

Spearman Rho started increasing again, but how come the Bundesliga became so unpredictable? One of the reasons why, could be that it was introduced the playoff for relegation/promotion in 2008/09. The playoff match was played between number 16 in the Bundesliga and 3rd place in 2. Bundesliga. The first year with the playoff, it was Energie Cottbus (16th in Bundesliga) against FC Nurnberg (3rd in 2. Bundesliga). FC Nurnberg won the game and finished 16th in the next season. The Spearman Rho only fell 0.03 from 2008/09 to 2009/10. In 2009/10 FC Nurnberg (16th) won the playoff game and was allowed to stay in the Bundesliga. The next season they finished 6th and the Spearman Rho decreased by 0.16 compared to the previous season. In 2010/11 Borrusia Monchengladbach (16th) won the playoff spot and they finished 4th in the next season. The Spearman Rho increased by 0.03 in 2011/12, resulting in the second lowest score (0.61) of the Bundesliga. The exact reason for why Borrusia Monchengladbach and FC Nurnberg improved so much has not been found. However the assumption is that the introduction of the playoff has made sure that the 3rd promoted team is strong enough for the Bundesliga. Thereby making the league stronger and this is one of the reasons why the league became more balanced. Again we can refer our observation to Michie and Oughton’s findings, which suggest that the promotion and relegation system does not support an increase on competitive balance. This does not explain why the Spearman Rho dropped the first 3 seasons prior to the playoff. However, the development in the first 3 years was only 0.08 and it could be argued that this is just a simple deviation from the average at that time. The 3 seasons following the introduction of the playoff, the Spearman Rho decreased with 0.24 in total. Since the 2010/11 season, the trend has been that the Spearman Rho is increasing again. It increased every year except the 2013/14 season. This drop can be explained by SC Freiburg, HSV and Eintracht Frankfurt’s poor season, where they lost 25 positions in total while Hoffenheim (16th) won the playoff and improved 9 positions according to the Spearman Rho.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

17 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

Another trend in the Bundesliga has been that the clubs participating in the Champions League will finish in the top of the Bundesliga the following season. Bayern Munich, Schalke 04 and Werder Bremen all participated in Champions League in 2010/11 and in 2011/12 they finished 2nd, 3rd and 9th respectively. In 2011/2012 Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen all participated in the Champions League and the following season, 2012/13, they finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively. In 2012/13 Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04 all participated in the champions League and in the following season, 2013/14, they finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively. Again the exact reason for this tendency is not proven. However, with the increasing prize money that comes along with the participation of Champions League, the clubs can invest more money in better and more players.

3.4 Serie A The Serie A has an average score of 0.79, which is 0.02 higher than Ligue 1. However, the Italian league has experienced a lot of scandals throughout this period, which have manipulated the result in a good way for the competitive balance. The first year, 2005/06, Serie A score 0.56, which is the lowest of all the leagues during the 10 years. This is due to the Calciopoli scandal, which involved Juventus, AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio and Reggina from the Serie A. For the season 2005/06 the biggest penalty was for Juventus who was stripped of their title as champions and placed on the 20th position, which meant that Juventus was relegated to Serie B. Furthermore AC Milan got 30 points deducted which saw them moving from 2nd to 3rd. However had the results been legit and Juventus won the championship then the Spearman Rho would have been at 0.71, instead of 0.56. Fiorentina, Reggina, AC Milan, Lazio and Siena (promoted from Serie B) were all deducted points for their involvement in the Calciopoli. This has influenced the final result of the league but the Spearman Rho for the season

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

18 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

2006/07 has not been affected by it. With or without the point’s deduction, then the Spearman Rho is 0.74. Throughout the seasons studied, the Italian league has experienced 4 other cases of point deductions. These deductions have been because of matchfixing and financial irregularities. However, they are smaller deductions compared to the Calciopoli. The uncertainty about the Italian league is that the matchfixing might have influenced the final result of the league table and therefore the Spearman Rho score.

3.5 La Liga La Liga has an average of 0.82 on the Spearman Rho scale. This places the league in between the highest scoring league, Premier League, and the lowest ranked league, Ligue 1. The Spearman Rho is fluctuating a lot for the Spanish league, but it has increased with 0.19 from the first season registered till the last where it peaks with a score of 0.95. This is the biggest development of all the leagues investigated and it is the highest Spearman Rho measured of all the leagues The N-S metric shows an increasing trend for La Liga over the timeframe. La Liga has increased throughout the last 9 seasons with the exception of 2010/11. However, this drop is most likely because the N-S metric had increased by a staggering 0.49 the previous season. Taking this season aside then the N-S metric has steadily increased from 1.55 in 2006/07 to 2.38 in 2014/15, which is the biggest development and the highest score measured amongst all the leagues. La Liga has an average of 1.90 over the 10-year period, which is lower than the Premier Leagues 2.01. However, if we only look at the previous 6 years then the average would be 2.08 for La Liga, which put them in front of Premier League as the least balanced league. The Premier League would only score 1.97 for the previous 6 years. The development of La Liga is the most outspoken of the “big five” leagues and therefore the most interesting to look into. Since La Liga was founded in 1929 Barcelona and Real Madrid have won the championship 55

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

19 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

times combined and only 7 other teams have won the league. The two dominating teams is therefore not a new thing, like PSG and Monaco in Ligue 1. However, the imbalance of the league is growing. In the book, The Wages of Wins, they have calculated the N-S metric for the Spanish league from 19762006 at an average of 1.43. Since 1976 football has been professionalised and within the past 15 years the amount of money invested in football has grown rapidly, which can be seen by the growing TV broadcasting deals, sponsorship agreements and as mentioned earlier the amount of billionaires buying their way into a football club. In Spain the broadcasting deals have been unevenly divided, since 1997/98 when the clubs started negotiating their TV rights separately. All the other leagues, investigated in this paper, use the centralized selling model. This meant that Barcelona, which had the best deal in La Liga, earned $173 million in 2014/15. This is approximately 11.5 times more than Eibar ($15 million), which earned the least amount of money from their TV rights in La Liga that year. Chelsea, who was the top earner on TV rights for the same year, only earned 1.5 times more than QPR who earned the least. They collected $150 million and $98 million respectively.33 La Liga is therefore using a system that creates inequality instead of equality. As Michie and Oughton argued, the more teams involved in a league that have adjacent competitive capabilities, the more uncertain the outcome will be for each match. Therefore it makes sense that the Spanish league has become more imbalanced than the Premier League, which distributes the money more evenly. The top 3 of La Liga in 2012/13 were also the 3 clubs that spent the most money on salaries34. Based on this, the decrease of competitive balance in La Liga can be caused by the difference in revenue distribution and the amount of money each club can spend on salaries and new players. This is a pattern that can be seen for all the leagues.

33

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2015/12/05/1-6b-worth-of-tv-deals-good-news-for-realmadrid-barcelona-and-la-liga/ 34 http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2014/05/05/winning-in-global-sport-often-about-the-money-moneymoney-but-not-always-050501/

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

20 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

3.6 Premier League The premier league is the highest scoring league of those investigated. The lowest score was 0.78 in 2005/06 and it peaked in 2014/15 at 0.94, but taking these 2 seasons aside the league has been incredibly stable and maximum deviated 0.04 from the average of 0.87. This means that the Premier League is settled as a league and it is very difficult to change many positions from season to season. One of the reasons for this is that the top teams have been very stable. From 2005/06 to 2008/09 it was the same 4 teams who finished in the top 4 and from 2009/10 to 2012/13 it was the same 5 teams that finished the top 5. The N-S metric for the Premier League has differed a lot from season to season, but it has only been below 2.00 three times during the previous 10 years, and the average is 2.01. According to “The Wages of Wins” the score from 1976-2006 was only 1.63, which means that the league has become less balanced since then. As mentioned before, then money plays a bigger role in football and in the Premier League this is true as well. Chelsea and Manchester City have gone from being a mid table team to being title contenders in almost every single season. The change came for both clubs when they were bought by a billionaire individual/organisation. Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea in 2003 and they won their first championship in more than 50 years in 2004/05. The Abu Dhabi United Group for Development and Investment (ADUG) overtook Manchester City in 2008 and they won their first championship in more than 40 years in 2011/12. The 3 seasons previous to the ADUG group buying Manchester City, the average N-S metric was 2.07 while it dropped to 1.93 for the 3 seasons following the takeover. This indicates that the league got more balanced during this period and it could therefore be argued that wealthier clubs does not necessarily mean less competitive balance. However, in 2010/11 the 6 teams who spent the most on salaries took care of the first 6 positions in the league. In 2011/12, 5 out of the 6 teams who spend the most on salaries finished in top 6 and in 2012/13 the same Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

21 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

happened35. The correlation between money spent on wages and performance in the league is definitely there, but this does not mean that the teams are guaranteed success if they pay the highest salary. “On any given Sunday, any team in the NFL can beat any other” Quote: Bert Bell

Bert Bell’s quote was about the NFL, but it can be said about most football leagues as well. Statistically, it just happened less in the Premier League and La Liga based on the analysis of the past 10 seasons.

3.7 Findings | “big five” European football leagues After the analysis of the competitive balance in the “big five” leagues, we are now able to say: No, European football is not getting more competitive balanced; in fact there are some indications that the leagues are becoming less balanced, at least until the 2014/15 season. As the Spearman Rho showed, the “big five” leagues have all increased their score from the first year of the analysis compared to the score of the last year. However, it is only La Liga that has a clear trend. La Liga have become less competitive balanced over the 10 seasons. In the first season they were the 2nd most competitive balanced league, in both measurements. However, in the last season they were the least competitive balanced within both measurements. Furthermore, La Liga peaked in the last season for both measurements. The league formats for the “big five” leagues are very similar to each other, but they do differ on a few areas. The biggest difference from La Liga compared to the other leagues has been their unequal distribution of money from TV rights. Based on this we assume that this is one of the reasons explaining why La Liga has become least balanced. The other leagues have fluctuated a lot during the seasons investigated. Though the Bundesliga increased their competitive balance for the first 6 seasons, this did not last. One of the reasons for the sudden increase of 35

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2014/may/02/premier-league-financesperformance-wage-bill

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

22 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

competitive balance in the German league, should be found by the implementation of the promotion/relegation playoff. This has arguably made the league stronger and ensured that the league became more balanced. The Italian league has experienced too many scandals through the 10years for us to draw any viable conclusions from it. We can only state that the competitive balance would have been much higher, in a couple of the seasons, if Calciopoli had not occurred. Ligue 1 is the most competitive balanced league on both the Spearman Rho and the N-S metric. Moreover the French league has also had the most different Champions over the past 20 seasons. However, during the last 3 season newly rich, PSG, has won the championship and during the last 2 season another newly rich team, Monaco, finished 2nd and 3rd. Our findings suggest that their ability to invest more money in better players have given them an advantage over their opponents in the league. Furthermore, this could be one of the reasons why the N-S metric and the Spearman Rho has peaked in the 2013/14 and 2014/15 respectively. Consequently, this could mark the start of a decreasing trend in competitive balance for the French league. The Premier League is the least competitive balanced league but at the same time it is one of the most stable leagues. One of the reasons for this could be that 4-5 teams have stayed in the top 5 throughout most of the 10 seasons measured. Continuity, participation and money from the European competitions are some of the reasons for this stability. Common for all the leagues is that 3-4 clubs that pay the most in wages also end up in the top 4 of the league. We assume this is because they can attract the best players, and season after season provide them with participation in the Champions League or Europa League.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

23 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

4. Comparative analysis of “other” leagues In this part the focus will be on the Major League Soccer (MLS), ALeague, National Football League (NFL) and the Premiership Rugby. They will be denominated the “other” leagues. These leagues differ from the “big five” leagues by having implemented different cross subsidization schemes. In this case the focus will mainly be on the salary cap and TV revenue sharing. The MLS and A-League were selected, due to the fact that they are two of the biggest football leagues outside Europe. Although the NFL is not a football (soccer) league, it was selected because it is still the most valuable league in the world, and has more previous studies and articles in regards to competitive balance, that will be used to comparative ends. The Premiership Rugby was chosen for being the first league in Europe to implement a salary cap, even tough it is not a football league, it is expected that some positive findings can be faced. The Spearman Rho and N-S metric has been calculated for these leagues over the same period as for the “big five” leagues. This will be the base for an in-depth discussion on whether or not the European leagues should implement cross subsidisation schemes.

4.1 NFL The NFL distinguishes itself from most European leagues by having different cross subsidization schemes. These schemes are revenue sharing, salary cap and the draft system. The draft system has been renewed multiple times since it was created in 1934. By having a reverse order draft, based on their finished standing in the league table, the bottom teams can pick first and thereby secure the best player for their team. This scheme prevents the more wealthy teams from offering the most talented players a higher salary in order to persuade them to play for their team. Similar to revenue sharing, that equally distributes revenue among the teams, the draft system tries to distribute talent equally among all the teams. Revenue sharing was introduced in the 1960’s, as a part of their first broadcasting deal. It was established in order to enhance the

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

24 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

competitive balance of the NFL, through the equalization of profits, as it also increases the financially weak team’s ability to improve performance by acquiring better players. If the teams do not spend the money distributed, in better players, revenue sharing may not have an effect on competitive balance, though it’s known that a player’s talent is intangible. In 1994 they presented the salary cap, which has been a vital part of keeping the expenditures controlled throughout the years. Nevertheless, the salary cap has increased season after season. When it was introduced the salary cap was $34.6 million per team and as of 2015 the salary cap has grown to $143.28 million per team. This increase is a natural side effect of the growing broadcasting deals, merchandising sales, sponsorship deals and international growth of the league. However, the question is when enough is enough? Alongside the salary cap, a salary floor was also created; this has ensured that the money from the revenue sharing will be spent on improving the quality of the team through the acquisition of new players. According to the Spearman Rho and the N-S metric the NFL league is in a better shape than the European leagues. Even though the Spearman Rho peaked in 2014, with a score of 0.80, then there are no other indications that this is a relevant trend. One could argue that the schemes implemented by NFL are not having a relevant effect on changing the finish standings in the table, at least over the 10 seasons measured. However, an argument could be that the league uses the cross-subsidization schemes to keep the level of competitive balance steady at the average of 0.66. The NFL is the only professional American football league in America and it is therefore not possible to relegate to a lower division like it is in the European football leagues. The teams can therefore perform poorly over multiple seasons without any major consequences economically. There might be a consequence in terms of fewer fans, less sold merchandise etc. They will still receive their share of the total revenue, and they will be able to draft the most talented players. This give the teams more time to rebuild their squad than if they would constantly have to fight to stay in the league and it might be one of the reasons why the spearman Rho is not lower than it is. Whereas in the

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

25 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

European leagues, the teams are forced to invest a lot of money in new players in order to prevent relegation. The N-S metric for the NFL has been more inconsistent than the Spearman Rho but during the 10-year period the league has improved the competitive balance though it is fluctuating a lot. The Wages of Wins also provides an N-S metric for the NFL. The average is created based on all seasons from 1922-2006 and is 1.56, which is 0.01 lower than the average from 2005-2014. The fluctuations from year to year are therefore more likely to derive from the natural distribution of talent, injuries to key players etc. as the league has averaged this level of competitiveness since 1922. Another important indication is that the competitive balance has not changed despite the implementation of cross subsidization schemes from the NFL. However, this might not be the whole truth. The Wages of Wins does not show the N-S metric for each season separately and in reality the N-S metric could have been much higher before the cross subsidization schemes were implemented, but it could also have been much lower. So to determine whether or not they have impacted the league, we can compare it to the “big five” leagues. According to The Wages of Wins the N-S metric has increased for all the European leagues by an average of 0.32. So although the cross subsidization schemes have not improved the competitive balance based on these figures then the NFL has stayed at the same level unlike the “big five” leagues. 8 years (1986-1993) prior to the salary cap implementation, there were 7 different teams in the Super Bowl and 4 different winners. However, the 8 years (1994-2001) following the salary cap implementation, there were 12 different teams in the Super Bowl and 7 different winners. In the next 8 years the tendency has continued with 12 participants in the Super Bowl and 6 different winners. So, it can be observed that the number of different participants and winners increased after the salary cap being implemented. Therefore, it can be assumed that the salary cap had a positive impact on the balance of the league, creating more chances for teams to get a place in the Super Bowl.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

26 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

So, although the variation of the final standings on the table are not developing, we can state that the gap between each team’s winning percentage is getting closer. Consequently, the uncertainty of outcome will become higher, being more difficult to guess if a team loses or wins. Contradicting the Spearman Rho, the N-S metric shows that parity among the league is increasing. This paradox can be explained by the fact, previously indicated, that competitive balance is a multidimensional phenomenon, therefore by using different methods to measure it, we can obtain different conclusions.

4.2 MLS Unlike the NFL, which has existed since 1920 then the MLS is a fairly new and undeveloped league. It was established after the FIFA world cup in 1994, which was held in USA, and created an interest for football over there. In 1996 the first season was played and the league consisted of 10 teams, but as of 2015 the number of teams has doubled to 20. The league has a closed format, as any other major American league, and therefore it does not have any relegation, but instead it has a playoff. The MLS is not the first American soccer league. From 1968 to 1984 the North American Soccer League existed. However, the league shut down due to financial troubles, as consequence of the unsustainable spending on wages by the team’s owners, which in the end was not supported by the league’s revenues. So when the MLS started, and thereby brought professional soccer back to America they had implemented a salary cap. The salary cap in the MLS is $3.49 million per team, but there are some exceptions to the cap. In 2007 the Designated Player rule (DP rule), named “The Beckham Rule”, as he was the first player inside this category. The rule stated that each team could hire 1 player outside the salary cap scheme. This rose to 2 players as of 2010. It is a fact that this rule has been creating a huge imbalance of the distribution of salaries among players. To support this, in 2013, 21% of the league’s wage spending went to only 5 players. The most extreme example is Kaka, playing for Orlando City SC, whose salary is $7.16 million, and represents 62% of the

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

27 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

team’s total payroll. Out of the total wage spending of the league, Toronto FC is the league’s big spender team, with a percentage of 14.3% ($22.8 million), according to Forbes36. The average Spearman Rho for the MLS is 0.72 over the measured seasons. The league has decreased the Spearman Rho over two periods. From 2007 till 2010 it decreased from 0.84 to 0.56 and from 2011 till 2014 it decreased from 0.83 to 0.60 until it rose to 0.74 in 2015. The reasons for this inconsistency may be the current development of the league, which has meant that during the measured period, the league has increased by 8 teams. After the first decrease period, the Spearman Rho grew 0.27. This growth is most likely due to the fact that there were added 2 new teams to the league this year, both finishing in the bottom third. If the teams had finished in the top third the Spearman Rho would have been lower than 0.83, which would consequently indicate a more competitive balance league. This is because, in the Spearman Rho calculation, the new teams are considered to have finished 17th and 18th in the previous season. The N-S metric has increased from 0.80 in 2006 to 0.95 in 2015. These scores mean that the teams in the league are closer in points than the ideal for this league. From 2006 the N-S metric grew to 1.35 in 2014, reaching its maximum of 1.49 in 2012. The average score for the league throughout the measured seasons is 1.18, which is the lowest of all the leagues measured. However, there are no indications whether the development of the Spearman Rho and N-S metric is affected by salary cap or if it is because of the expansion of the league. Furthermore the MLS has playoffs, which means that some teams might slack off in the end of the regular season. In the 2015 season, FC Dallas finished 2nd overall and won their conference despite only loosing 7 out of their last 9 games. In 2014, Seattle Sounders won the league 3 points ahead of second place event though they only won 2 out of their last 7 games. Furthermore the difference between the first and last placed teams in the MLS was 30 points in 2015. In 2014/15 the lowest difference in the “big five” leagues 36

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2015/07/20/mls-is-to-salary-cap-what-donald-trump-is-tohumility/

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

28 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

was

48

Bundesliga

points

recorded

whereas

La

in Liga

experienced the biggest difference with 74 points. MLS is by far the most competitive balanced league based on N-S metric, Spearman Rho and the point’s difference, but is this the real picture? Chase Woodruff 37 discuss in an article, “why parity is the greatest threat to a thriving MLS”, for 8by8

Points Difference between first and last (2014/15 season): Bundesliga 48 points (Bayern Munich 79, Paderborn 31) Ligue 1 54 points (PSG 83, RC Lens 29) Premier League 57 points (Chelsea 87, QPR 30) Serie A 68 points (Juventus 87, Parma 19) La Liga 74 points (Barcelona 94, Cordoba 20) MLS 30 points (New York Redbulls 60, Chicago Fire 30)

magazine that the teams in the MLS will easier settle with a draw during the regular season as they just need to finish in the top 6 of their conference. A top 6 position ensure them a place in the playoff, which means that 60% of the teams in the MLS will proceed to the playoff and therefore there are not much at stake for the teams whereas a draw in the premier league can be a disaster. MLS therefore might look more competitive than it actually is. Despite the fact that the implementation of the Designated Player rule creates disparity among the players’ salaries, the idea of a salary cap per team still exists and the governing bodies of the league control it. Put it simply, there are exceptions (DP rule) – to develop the quality of the league – but the league still sets limits on the wage spending (salary cap).

4.3 A-League In this research, the Australian Soccer League (A-League), is the only one measured over 9 seasons, for the Spearman Rho, as this measure demands finished league standings of two seasons. The reason for this is that the A-league had its first season in 2005/06. Consisted by 8 teams in the initial season, it is currently made up by 10 teams. Like the North American leagues measured in this paper, the A-league has no relegation and has a salary cap, 37

http://8by8mag.com/parity-mls/

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

29 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

implemented since the first season. The salary cap in 2005/06 was A$1.50 million (Australian Dollars), which grew to A$2.55 million in 2014/15. In this season it had a salary floor of A$2.29 million, 89.8% of the maximum wage spending (comparable to NFL’s salary floor), and the minimum salary for a player was A$51.000. Identical to MLS’s DP rule, the A-League has something called Marquee Player, who is also exempt from the salary cap. In the first season it was only possible to register 1 Marquee player, but as of the 2014/15 season a team could register 1 Marquee player (international player), 1 Australian Marquee and 1 Junior Marquee (under 23 years). The Spearman Rho has decreased with 0.27 from the first season to the last, indicating an increase in the competitive balance of the league. In 2008/09 the league implemented the Australian Marquee, in the same season the Spearman Rho decreased by 0.15. 2 years later they implemented the Junior Marquee and again the Spearman Rho decreased by 0.05, the lowest value over the 9 years. Without direct proof of this, there seems to be a connection between having exceptions to the salary cap and the increase of competitive balance. The N-S metric for the A-league has changed dramatically from year to year reaching its lowest point in 2008 at 0.88 and peaking in 2015 at 1.83. There are no apparent reasons for why the N-S metric fluctuates so much in the A-league. The league is therefore difficult to use as an example for the European leagues to look at, since it is hard to see if it has benefitted from the different cross subsidization schemes.

4.4 Premiership rugby The Premiership Rugby has been included in this paper, as an insider, the example of a European league, which has a salary cap. The league was created in 1987 and consists of 12 teams who play 2 times against each other during the regular season. Unlike the A-league and the North American leagues, the Premiership Rugby is not a closed league. This means that the worst team is relegated to the RFU Championship and the winner of the RFU

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

30 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

Championship Final will be promoted to the Premiership Rugby. The Premiership Rugby has experimented different playoff formats. The current playoff format has existed since 2005/06, which is a system where only the 4 best teams qualify for the playoffs. Compared to the MLS and as well the NFL, there is more at stake in every game, meaning that the competitive balance of the Premiership Rugby should be more accurate. The base salary cap is £4.76 million, 1 player may be excluded from the salary cap should he fulfil 1 of 3 criteria’s. The player either have to have played two full seasons before becoming an excluded player, participated in the 2011 Rugby World Cup final tournament or played outside the Premiership in the season before becoming an excluded player. Furthermore each team has up to £240.000 of “academy credit” which can be spent on a maximum of 8 players (maximum £30.000 per player). To get the “academy credit” the player has to have joined the club before turning 18, earn more than £30.000 and be less than 24 years at the start of the season. The Spearman Rho for the league has an average of 0.79 and it has increased the last 4 years, peaking in the last season, 2014/15, at 0.92. This is just as high as the European football leagues. With an average of 1.48 the N-S metric is lower than the European football leagues and the NFL, but this is mainly because of the first two seasons (1.10 and 1.14). Since then the tendency has been that the league is getting less balanced, peaking in 2013/14 with a score of 1.86. The two measurements both show a trend for the Premiership Rugby to become less competitive balanced which indicates that the salary cap is not helping on the competitive balance of the Premiership Rugby.

4.5 Findings | “other” leagues The NFL, MLS, A-League and Premiership Rugby were all investigated based on the fact that they are using cross subsidization schemes. The aim was to see if it could be found a connection between being a highly competitive balanced league and using these schemes. However the analysis gave

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

31 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

inconclusive answers. The competitive balance has decreased for the Premiership Rugby during the measured years and out of the “other” leagues it is the least balanced. The A-league fluctuates the most out of the 4 leagues, but it manages to keep the competitive balance at the same level as the American leagues on average. However it is difficult to see what the A-league does well in order to keep the competitive balance so low on average. What have the American leagues done in order to keep the competitive balance? The main differences are the closed leagues, revenue sharing in the NFL, reverse draft system and a salary cap. All of the above mentioned parameters have created a system that in many ways is the sport world’s peer to the USSR’s communistic regime. The system simply demands parity. The salary cap and floor has to ensure that all teams spend approximately the same amount of money on player’s salary, thereby eliminating the richest teams from buying all the talent as it happens in European football. The revenue sharing has to ensure that the clubs are able to pay the salary floor and the reverse draft system warrants an equal distribution of talent. The MLS and the NFL have been the most stable leagues in terms of the competitive balance and they are more balanced than the “big five” leagues. The NFL have managed to keep a stable N-S metric throughout the seasons measured compared to the seasons from 1922-2006, while all the “big five” leagues have become less balanced during the last 10 seasons compared to the seasons from 1976-2006. This has meant that the NFL has become more balanced than the European leagues.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

32 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

5. Can UEFA implement Cross subsidization schemes in European football leagues? Based on knowledge and research, and previous analysis, it can only be assumed that not all cross subsidization schemes might work in European football leagues, being implemented by UEFA. And even the schemes that might have some impact, need to be different from the ones in the North American Major Leagues, because the European football leagues have other characteristics and requirements. So, to vastly answer the question above: Yes. In theory, UEFA should be able to implement cross subsidization schemes in European football leagues. But in practice, when getting into the issue, it can also be expected that UEFA may encounter several barriers ahead of them. And, it can also be assumed that UEFA is not exactly the most powerful frontrunner to implement these schemes (although this could be presumed, since they are the governing body of European football). The governing bodies of the national leagues are the ones with power to really fight the imparity among the leagues. It may seem that some of the schemes implemented in North American major leagues could be easy to transfer to Europe. But, it cannot be forgotten the complexity of the relationship between European football leagues and UEFA, and for example the MLS (competition) and MLS (association/governing body). While in North America, a single governing body oversees a single premier competition, in Europe’s case it is more complicated. UEFA governs European football, and organizes and controls the Champions League and Europa League but its authority over the domestic leagues is very limited. Therefore, the power to enforce a cross subsidization scheme, will be much greater with the governing bodies of the European football leagues combined, acting together, sharing the aim to create competition instead of destroying it. Of course, UEFA should stand in the middle of this and support the leagues, but it cannot be assumed that UEFA will be a front-runner by its own. When talking about implementing a cross subsidization scheme, one side (governing bodies of the national leagues) has more power than the other (UEFA), but the two should always act united and according to the other.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

33 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

Comparing to the many leagues analysed, in this specific case the NFL, it can be stated that a draft system would not be suitable in the European football leagues. This is due to the specificity of the European leagues, like the promotion and relegation system, which does not allow an easy and viable implementation of a draft system. The European football leagues are too multidimensional to impose a draft system. Although, an hypothetical draft system in the European football leagues – the concept of the bottom teams in the table, usually the smaller/poor ones, picking up first the best players in the league – might probably promote an equal chance for smaller/poor teams to compete with larger/richer teams. As for revenue sharing, in specific broadcasting revenue, this is a scheme that should be explored more in European football leagues, with the current reality being a complete imbalance between the clubs in a league, and between all leagues in Europe. As mentioned earlier, Barcelona received 11.5 times more than Eibar in TV revenue in 2014/15. Compared to that, Chelsea only received 1.5 times more than QPR, for the same season. Furthermore, in 2013/14 season in La Liga, the champions Atlético Madrid only got €42 million in TV revenue, while Real Madrid and Barcelona got €140 million each. What can be more imbalanced than the champions of the league earning 70% less than the second and third placed clubs? Although some leagues are trying to make the money distribution more even, it can be anticipated that these efforts are far from achieving an increase of competitive balance. Following the Premier League broadcasting money distribution model, La Liga is also going to adopt a similar system starting from 2016/17 season. La Liga’s model states that from the 93% of the TV money allocated to La Liga (first division) and Liga Adelante (second division), 10% will go to Liga Adelante clubs. The rest of the money will be distributed between the 20 clubs in La Liga, set on the resulting model: 50% equally shared among the 20 clubs; 25% shared based on how the clubs finish in the table in the last 3 years (merit money based); and 25% shared according to resource generation capacity of the clubs.38 The system will allow bottom and middle positioned 38

http://www.totalsportek.com/money/spanish-la-liga-tv-rights-sale-equal-distribution-model/

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

34 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

teams to receive more from TV revenue, but will not allow clubs to earn less money with the new system compared to what they earn right now. Therefore the system will prevent bottom teams to only earn around €20 million but will not prevent clubs like Real Madrid or Barcelona from earning around €140 million each in terms of TV revenue (due to a clause in the new legislation). If one looks at the money earned by each club in the Premier League, in the next seasons, the bottom club will earn around £97 million and the champions will earn £146 million, a 35% difference. These numbers translate to a better TV revenue sharing between the clubs (not exactly equal but closer to that), but it is not enough. As shown by the Spearman Rho and N-S metric, the Premier League is the most uneven league. With the money that a Champions League participant earns the imbalance will be even bigger in the leagues. UEFA needs to implement a better revenue sharing system. As previous analysed, a Champions League participant will generally have more TV revenue than a club who does not participate. Besides that, there is also a trend for Champions League participants perform well in their domestic leagues. Therefore, although it creates a positive impact, it is not enough that the leagues itself implement new TV revenue sharing models on their own. This must also be followed by a different prize money sharing model in the European competitions organized by UEFA like Europa League, but especially Champions League. Some European rugby leagues have already implemented a salary cap (first in 1997 in the United Kingdom, by the Rugby Football League). In football, one of the main reasons to elucidate the lack of such a scheme, is the way that the European football leagues are organized. Looking at a possible salary cap in European football leagues, one could even say that it is an unmanageable task. According to this analysis, it can be stated that it is not impossible but very difficult, although it might have a great impact in competitive balance. This is due to the huge amounts of money involved in players’ salaries and the necessity to limit how much clubs (specially the financially strongest teams) can spend on it. This is the aspect that is missing on UEFA’s Financial Fair Play imposed since 2011. The measure obligates the clubs to spend only according to their earnings, which is theoretically converted in clubs without debts.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

35 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

Though, the model does not limit how much a club can spend in a player’s salary. For example, according to Forbes39 , Cristiano Ronaldo received the gigantic amount of $52.6 million related to his salary in 2015, corresponding to 7% of the total revenue ($746 million40) of Real Madrid in the same season. The same “picture” is generally repeated in every top-clubs in European football. Another example being Manchester City, who according to The Guardian41, spent 86% (£233 million) of the total turnover in salaries, in 2012/13 season, where they finished 2nd in the Premier League. In the same season, Wigan spent 79% (£44 million) of the total revenue on salaries and Queens Park Rangers spent 128% (£78 million). Wigan finished 18th and Queens Park Rangers in the bottom of the table. This shows the massive rupture in wage outflow between the top four or five clubs and the rest, how the poor teams struggle for a chance to compete equally with the strongest teams, and fail to do so. Again, this is one of the main reasons for such an imbalance in European football leagues. When analysing the “big five” leagues, it became clear that there exists a trend for clubs with a higher wage bill to perform better in the leagues. This is not an exact science, a club can finish in last even if it has the highest payroll (although it is unlikely to happen), but the trend that relates higher performance with higher wage bill exists. And it makes sense. If you can afford the best players (normally the most expensive ones) you should perform better. In 2012/13 season in Premier League the club with the highest payroll was Manchester City (£233 million), which finished 2nd, and the club with the lowest payroll was Wigan (£44 million), which finished 18th.42 Therefore, it is important to narrow the gap between the top and bottom payrolls. Theoretically, if this is done, the leagues should enhance the competitive balance. Once again, it can be assumed that UEFA will not be able to implement a viable salary cap by it self, as it would only apply to UEFA’s competitions like 39

http://www.forbes.com/profile/cristiano-ronaldo/ http://www.forbes.com/teams/real-madrid/ 41 http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2014/may/02/premier-league-financesperformance-wage-bill 42 http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2014/may/02/premier-league-financesperformance-wage-bill 40

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

36 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

Europa League and Champions League, and the wage bill related only to players registered in its competitions. Consequently, as previous mentioned, a salary cap would only have a positive impact if all the governing bodies of the national leagues in Europe and UEFA work together on the implementation. This might be the biggest challenge for UEFA, because every national football league is in competition with each other. Every league wants to obtain the best players, due to the existence of a free market, which allows clubs to buy players from other leagues. This free movement is legislated by the European Union and states that citizens may not be banned from working in other countries inside the union, which means that football leagues inside the union cannot prohibit a free movement of players between the leagues. Subsequently, if only one or a few leagues implement a salary cap, the players affected by the cap would still be able to exchange to uncapped leagues. Besides, it would be unfair to have uncapped clubs competing in European competitions with salarycapped clubs. As a conclusion of this, it is imperative that a possible implementation of a powerful and sustainable salary cap is initiated together by the governing bodies of all European football leagues and UEFA. Another challenge that can be faced is the pyramidal structure of the European football leagues that does not exist in most of the other leagues analysed. In this case, the promotion and relegation system, which allows teams to be promoted or relegated to top or lower divisions. A club that is relegated may be financially over the lower division cap. Correspondingly, a club that is promoted to a top division may find it hard to afford players due to a high salary floor. Therefore, it can be assumed that in a first step, a salary floor wouldn’t be suitable in European football leagues. The European tax systems and rates would also be a challenge for the salary cap implementation. As the tax systems and rates differ significantly in Europe, from country to country, an even maximum amount to spend in wages would not be effective. This is, because the clubs in countries with higher rates in tax systems, would hardly attract good players (presupposed that these are the most expensive players), due to the fact that a player can earn more in countries with lower rates. For example, AS Monaco, a club from the Principality

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

37 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

of Monaco, a state that levies no income tax on individuals. So, it can be assumed that, in a first step, a possible salary cap should not be even for all leagues. It should be set according to each leagues’ variables including the tax rate of the respective country, without forgetting the principle that it should be the most equal possible to increase competitive balance. Moreover, from league to league, the currencies of the respective countries change. And wages are generally paid in the local currency. Although almost all countries hosting European football leagues use the euro (€) as currency, there are exceptions, one of them being the country that still has the bigger league economically, England that uses pounds (£). Therefore, the currency of each country would also be a variable to set the maximum cap. Even if UEFA would impose a flat cap for European football leagues in euros, there would always be fluctuating exchange rates on countries that do not pay wages in euros, which would not be a fair cap for all parties. In another perspective, forcing the outsider clubs (of the euro currency) to pay wages in euros43 would be a difficult “road”, since it could depreciate the local currency of the country or even be a threat, due to the possibility of substituting the local currency. Besides that, in the case of England, the pound is too strong of a currency for this to happen with the approval of the league and even the state. The salary cap is a difficult scheme to implement in European football leagues, and it may not have the impact as in the other leagues analysed, but with the current discrepancy in wages among the teams in each league a salary cap needs urgently to be set. It is urgent to get the clubs that spend enormous amounts of money closer to the other clubs of the league table. It can also be assumed that no matter the model, the beginning step would most certainly not be 100% fair for every league, and there would most likely occur disagreements. But for the welfare of each national and international league, and the long-term goal to preserve the balance of the competition there must be a first step. And in a first step there must be the concern to get the payrolls of each team closer to each other. After that, and the hardest part, the concern to 43

For example, NHL demands that Canadian teams pay players’ wages in U.S. dollars to ensure that wages do not fluctuate with exchange rates and creates divergences in the salary cap.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

38 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

get the payrolls of each leagues closer to each other’s. Also, on the contrary to the North American major leagues, the maximum amount to spend in wages in European football leagues shouldn’t be a percentage-of-revenue cap, because then the financially wealthier teams would still have a higher cap than the poor teams. Based on our research, there cannot be presented a model on how UEFA could set a salary cap in European football leagues. But, based on our research and knowledge we recognize the challenges that UEFA and the governing bodies of each league may most certainly find in the way to implement a sustainable salary cap. It might not be a salary cap like the ones in Major League Soccer or A-League, but a limit amount to spend on salaries must be set, otherwise it is going to lead us to even more absurd numbers relative to wages. Besides that, based on the comparative analysis between the “big five” leagues and other leagues who have already set a salary cap, there is stated the basic and fundamental principles on how a salary cap should be implemented in European football leagues, with the objective of enhancing competitive balance.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

39 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

6. Conclusion According to the collected data, findings from former studies and our knowledge, it can be assumed that the general idea of competitive balance in the larger European football leagues (Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, Serie A), the so called “big five” leagues, is in a decreasing status. This means that there were found evidences, that lead us to state that the teams within the leagues analysed, from 2005/06 to 2014/15, are becoming more unequal between themselves. In fact, in the five leagues, it was concluded that they all increased their last year score (of competitive balance) compared to the first year analysed, according the Spearman Rho. From all the five, La Liga is the one that showed a more defined trend, indicating that the league is becoming less competitive balanced, over the ten seasons analysed. In our findings, we assume that this is mainly to do with the massive inequality regarding the distribution of money from TV rights. It can also be stated, according to our data, that Ligue 1 is the most competitive balanced league of the five, and the Premier League being the least balanced, however it is the most stable league according to the Spearman Rho. Due to the scandals occurred in the Italian league, we were not able to state viable conclusions. In the Bundesliga, it was found that the application of a promotion/relegation playoff can be assumed as an agent to the increase of balance in the competition, in the first 6 seasons analysed. It is also noted that in the “big five” leagues, the top 5 standings in each season do not vary much. In fact, generally, the same 4-5 teams end up in the top 5 throughout the analysis. This lead us to conclude, that there is a trend for the participating teams of the European competitions performing well in the next season in the domestic league, mainly because those teams win a high prize money from UEFA and then attract and are able to afford better players to their teams. As of the other leagues analysed (Major League Soccer (MLS), ALeague, National Football League (NFL) and the Premiership Rugby), it is stated that, according to our data, they all are more competitive balanced than the European football leagues analysed, which can be assumed is as consequence of using cross subsidization schemes (salary cap, draft system, Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

40 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

revenue sharing). Furthermore, the playoff system in the MLS and NFL might have manipulated the competitive balance scores (Spearman Rho and N-S metric) look more even. This is due to the fact that once a team has qualified for the playoffs, the importance of winning a game becomes less relevant. It was not possible to prove with a 100% certainty that there is a connection between the use of cross subsidization schemes and the increase on competitive balance. However, the NFL saw an increase of different teams participating in and winning the Super Bowl after the implementation of the salary cap. During the investigation, it is not possible to present a theoretical model of how to do it, but it is assumed that UEFA could hypothetically be capable of implementing some of the cross subsidization schemes analysed in the “other” leagues, although they would find many challenges, like the conflicting tax system and currency of each country, the pyramidal structure in the leagues and the logical fact of the huge discrepancy of disparity that is present in the leagues nowadays. Besides that, it is acknowledged that UEFA does not have enough authority over the domestic leagues. So, it is within our findings that to implement a viable and sustainable salary cap and better TV revenue sharing system, this would have to be done together with the support of all the governing bodies of the European football leagues and UEFA. It is recognized that the major problem of competitive balance in European football leagues, is the economical divergence between the clubs of a league. The richer teams have higher possibilities of affording the best players, and therefore more chances of performing better in the competitions, resulting in an imbalance in the league. Consequently, a limit amount of money spent in salaries must be set.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

41 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

Appendix 1 Link for all the excel sheets where the Spearman Rho and Noll-Scully metric has been calculated in. https://goo.gl/wrCLn0

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

42 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

Appendix 2 Spearman Rho of the “big five” European football leagues

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

43 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

Appendix 3 Noll-Scully metric of the “big five” football leagues

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

44 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

Appendix 4 Premier League TV rights deal money distribution

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

45 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

References G. KNOWLES, K. SHERONY, and M. HAUPERT, (1992), The Demand for Major League Baseball: A Test of the Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis, The American Economist, vol. 36, p. 72-80. J. BEECH, S. CHADWICK, (2013), The Business of Sport Management, p. 78. F. NIETZSCHE, (1977), The Portable Nietzsche, p. 36-37 S. ROTTENBERG, (1956), The baseball players’ labor market, vol.64, p. 242. P. JANSSENS, S. KESENNE, (1986), Belgian Soccer Attendances, Tijdschrift voor Economie en Management, vol. 32(3), p. 305-315. M. EL-HODIRI, J. QUIRK, (1971), An economic model of a professional sports league, vol.79, p. 1302-1319. J. H. TOPKIS, (1949), Monopoly in Professional Sports, vol.58 (5), p. 691-712. J. BEECH, S. CHADWICK, (2013), The Business of Sport Management, p. 78. D. FORREST, R. SIMMONS, (2002), Outcome uncertainty and attendance demand in sport: the case of English soccer, vol.51 (2), p. 229-241. J. MICHIE, C. OUGHTON, (2005), Competitive Balance in Football: An Update. R. FORT, J. QUIRK, (1995), Cross-Subsidization, Incentives, and Outcomes in Professional Team Sports Leagues, vol.33 (3), p. 1265-1299. J. CAIRNS, N. JENNETT, P.J. SLOANE, (1974), The Economics of Professional Team Sports: A Survey of Theory and Evidence, Journal of Economic Studies, vol.13 (1), p. 3-80. B. HUMPHREYS, (2002). Alternative Measures of Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues. Journal of Sports Economics, vol.3 (2), p. 133-148. O. HIRSCHMAN, (1964), The Paternity of an Index, The American Economic Review, vol.54 (5), p. 761. C. DEPKEN, (1999), Free Agency and the Competitiveness of MLB, Review of Industrial Organization, vol.14 (3), p. 205-217. J. MICHIE, C. OUGHTON, (2004), Competitive balance in football: Trends and effects. C. SPEARMAN, (1904), The proof and measurement of association between two things, vol. 15 (1), p. 72-101. V. MANASIS, I. NTZOUFRAS, (2013), Between-seasons Competitive Balance in European Football: Review of Existing and Development of Specially Designed Indices.

Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

46 of 47

Parity in European football leagues

A. S. ZIMBALIST, (2003), Competitive Balance Conundrums: Response to Fort and Maxcy's Comment, Journal of Sports Economics, vol. 4 (2), p. 161-163. M. SASS, (2012), Long-term Competitive Balance under UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations, working paper n. 5. H. PREUSS, K.K. Haugen and M. Schubert, (2014), UEFA Financial Fair Play: The Curse of Regulation, working paper n. 7. S. KESENNE, (2003), The Salary Cap Proposal of the G-14 in European Football, European Sport Management Quarterly, vol. 3 (2), p. 120-128. T. PAWLOWSKI, C. BREUER, A. HOVEMANN, (2010), The club’s performance and the competitive situation in European domestic football competitions, Journal of Sports Economics, vol. 11 (2), p. 186-202. D. BERRI, M. SCHMIDT and S. BROOK, (2007), The Wages of Wins: Taking Measure of the Many Myths in Modern Sport. Sports Business Group at Deloitte, Annual Review of Football Finance 2014

Links http://www.uefa.org/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/2402329.stm http://www.uefa.com/community/news/newsid=2064391.html http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/news/newsid=1858497.html http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2015/12/05/1-6b-worth-of-tv-deals-good-news-forreal-madrid-barcelona-and-la-liga/ http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2014/05/05/winning-in-global-sport-often-about-the-moneymoney-money-but-not-always-050501/ http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2014/may/02/premier-league-financesperformance-wage-bill http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2015/07/20/mls-is-to-salary-cap-what-donaldtrump-is-to-humility/ http://8by8mag.com/parity-mls/ http://www.totalsportek.com/money/spanish-la-liga-tv-rights-sale-equal-distribution-model/ http://www.forbes.com/profile/cristiano-ronaldo/ http://www.forbes.com/teams/real-madrid/



Anders Nikolaj Nordman Amby André Moreira Cerqueira

47 of 47