ABSTRACT

Research question: Interest in women’s team sports has increased over time. However, there is still little research comparing competitive balance between genders in the bigger sports leagues. Against this background the main research question is whether there are systematic differences in competitive balance between the genders among the bigger sports leagues.

Research methods: The analysis involves football (soccer), handball and basketball leagues for the period 2007/08–2016/17 (14 leagues and 135 observations) and is based on quantitative methods. Competitive balance is a multidimensional concept, and this paper separately measures win dispersion, performance persistence and prize (here: championship winner) concentration.

Results and findings: In football (soccer), win dispersion is strongly significantly weaker for women’s leagues compared to their respective men’s leagues, while the results for the other dimensions are mixed. Generally, the level of competitive balance seems weak in women’s football (soccer) and in handball. For the latter, there is little difference in competitive balance between the genders. In basketball, the strong significant results for performance persistence suggest that the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) is more balanced than the NBA.

Implications: The level of competitive balance in women’s football in Europe looks weak, also compared to the women’s football in North America. If this leads to competitive balance problems (i.e. lower attendance, ceteris paribus) among women’s football in Europe, governing bodies should consider traditional regulations to promote equalization of sporting quality and/or to adjust the framework of the game to better fit women’s physiques.

摘要

研究问题：随着时间的推移，人们对女子团队运动的兴趣不断增加。然而，在较大的体育联盟中比较性别之间的竞争平衡的研究仍然很少。在此背景下，主要的研究问题是大型体育联盟的性别之间的竞争平衡是否存在系统性差异。

研究方法：分析涉及 2007/08-2016/17 期间的足球（足球）、手球和篮球联赛（14 个联赛和 135 次观察），并基于定量方法。竞争平衡是一个多维的概念，本文分别测量了胜利分散度、表现持久性和奖金（此处：冠军得主）集中度。

结果和发现：在足球（足球）中，与各自的男子联赛相比，女子联赛的胜利分散性明显要弱得多，而其他维度的结果则喜忧参半。一般来说，女子足球（足球）和手球的竞争平衡水平似乎较弱。对于后者，性别之间的竞争平衡几乎没有差异。在篮球方面，表现持久性的强劲显着结果表明女子国家篮球协会 (WNBA) 比 NBA 更平衡。

影响：与北美女足相比，欧洲女足的竞争平衡水平看起来很弱。如果这导致欧洲女足的竞争平衡问题（即上座率降低、其他条件不变），管理机构应考虑传统法规以促进体育质量的均等化和/或调整比赛框架以更好地适应女性体质。