ABSTRACT

Competitive balance is a key concept in sports economics. It postulates the necessity of sporting equilibrium between playing strengths to generate outcome uncertainty and thus fan demand. When looking at national teams, policy and political factors can help explain competitive balance. This article is interested in the evolution of competitive balance in the FIFA women’s football World Cups over the 1991–2019 period. It aims to identify the policy, political and economic determinants of this evolution. The theoretical framework brings together the macro and sports policy factors leading to international sporting success, the historical policies and politics of gender equality and women’s football impacting participation, and the economics and politics of the evolution of competitive balance that is positively impacted by an increase in participation. The research adopts a mixed methods approach, with the data relying both on sources documenting the historical policies and politics of gender equality and women’s football, and the measurement and determinants of the competitive balance in the women’s football World Cups. The results show that competitive balance has increased over time, consistent with the idea that the growing participation internationally translates in a better quality of the different playing strengths that, ultimately, leads to a better competitive balance. This growing participation internationally is related to the different (sport) policies and politics across countries, and the decisions made by FIFA, in particular the number of teams taking part in the competition and the breakdown per confederation as incentives for national associations to develop their women’s football team.

摘要

竞争平衡是体育经济学中的一个关键概念。它假设在比赛强度之间保持体育平衡的必要性，以产生结果的不确定性，从而产生球迷的需求。在考察国家队时，政策和政治因素可以帮助解释竞争平衡。本文对 1991 年至 2019 年 FIFA 女足世界杯期间竞争平衡的演变感兴趣。它旨在确定这一演变的政策、政治和经济决定因素。理论框架汇集了导致国际体育成功的宏观和体育政策因素、性别平等的历史政策和政治以及影响参与的女足，以及竞争平衡演变的经济和政治，这受到参与度增加的积极影响。该研究采用混合方法，数据既依赖于记录性别平等和女足的历史政策和政治的来源，也依赖于女足世界杯竞争平衡的衡量和决定因素。结果表明，竞争平衡随着时间的推移而增加，这与越来越多的国际参与转化为更好的不同比赛优势的质量一致，最终导致更好的竞争平衡。这种日益增长的国际参与与各国不同的（体育）政策和政治以及国际足联做出的决定有关，