[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/spe/wpaper/1117.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gender Differences in Competitive Balance in Intercollegiate Basketball

Author

Listed:
  • Jaret Treber

    (Department of Economics, Kenyon College)

  • Rachel Levy

    (Bessemer Trust)

  • Victor Matheson

    (Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross)

Abstract
This paper adds to the literature on competitive balance in college sports by comparing men's and women's NCAA basketball. Using data from the Division I National Championships, we find evidence consistent with the idea that women’s college basketball is less competitively balanced than men’s college basketball. We argue that this difference may be explained by a theory of player ability borrowed from evolutionary biology first promulgated by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould and subsequently utilized in Berri (2004). An implication of this idea is that competitive balance in women’s NCCA basketball will naturally improve over time. This is good news for those who are concerned with the long term success of the sport to the extent that competitive balance in women’s college basketball impacts fan demand. Nevertheless, we discuss why there may be reason to believe that women’s college basketball may not reach the same level of balance as men’s college basketball.

Suggested Citation

  • Jaret Treber & Rachel Levy & Victor Matheson, 2011. "Gender Differences in Competitive Balance in Intercollegiate Basketball," Working Papers 1117, International Association of Sports Economists;North American Association of Sports Economists.
    • Handle: RePEc:spe:wpaper:1117
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://college.holycross.edu/RePEc/spe/MathesonTreber_WomensBasketball.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allen R. Sanderson & John J. Siegfried, 2003. "Thinking about Competitive Balance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(4), pages 255-279, November.
    2. Daniel Sutter & Stephen Winkler, 2003. "Ncaa Scholarship Limits and Competitive Balance in College Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(1), pages 3-18, February.
    3. Walter C. Neale, 1964. "The Peculiar Economics of Professional Sports," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 78(1), pages 1-14.
    4. Michael R. Butler, 1995. "Competitive Balance in Major League Baseball," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 39(2), pages 46-52, October.
    5. Craig A. Depken II & Dennis P. Wilson, 2006. "NCAA Enforcement and Competitive Balance in College Football," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(4), pages 826-845, April.
    6. Andrew S. Zimbalist, 2002. "Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 3(2), pages 111-121, May.
    7. Martin B. Schmidt & David J. Berri, 2001. "Competitive Balance and Attendance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 2(2), pages 145-167, May.
    8. James Quirk, 2004. "College football conferences and competitive balance," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(2), pages 63-75.
    9. Craig Depken, 1999. "Free-Agency and the Competitiveness of Major League Baseball," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 14(3), pages 205-217, May.
    10. Simon Rottenberg, 1956. "The Baseball Players' Labor Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(3), pages 242-242.
    11. E. Eckard, 1998. "The NCAA Cartel and Competitive Balance in College Football," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 13(3), pages 347-369, June.
    12. Randall W. Bennett & John L. Fizel, 1995. "Telecast Deregulation and Competitive Balance," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 183-199, April.
    13. David J. Berri & Stacey L. Brook & Bernd Frick & Aju J. Fenn & Roberto Vicente-Mayoral, 2005. "The Short Supply of Tall People: Competitive Imbalance and the National Basketball Association," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(4), pages 1029-1041, December.
    14. Brad R. Humphreys, 2002. "Alternative Measures of Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 3(2), pages 133-148, May.
    15. Rodney Fort & Joel Maxcy, 2003. "“Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues: An Introductionâ€," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(2), pages 154-160, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pelnar, Gregory, 2007. "Antitrust Analysis of Sports Leagues," MPRA Paper 5382, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Robert J. Lemke & Matthew Leonard & Kelebogile Tlhokwane, 2010. "Estimating Attendance at Major League Baseball Games for the 2007 Season," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(3), pages 316-348, June.
    3. Brian M. Mills & Steven Salaga, 2015. "Historical Time Series Perspectives on Competitive Balance in NCAA Division I Basketball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(6), pages 614-646, August.
    4. Wen-Jhan Jane, 2014. "The Relationship Between Outcome Uncertainties and Match Attendance: New Evidence in the National Basketball Association," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 45(2), pages 177-200, September.
    5. Allen R. Sanderson & John J. Siegfried, 2003. "Thinking about Competitive Balance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(4), pages 255-279, November.
    6. Meletakos, Panagiotis & Chatzicharistos, Dimitrios & Apostolidis, Nikolaos & Manasis, Vasilios & Bayios, Ioannis, 2016. "Foreign players and competitive balance in Greek basketball and handball championships," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 391-401.
    7. Carlos Gomez-Gonzalez & Julio del Corral & R. Todd Jewell & Jorge García-Unanue & Cornel Nesseler, 2019. "A Prospective Analysis of Competitive Balance Levels in Major League Soccer," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 54(1), pages 175-190, February.
    8. Hojun Sung & Brian M. Mills & Younghoon Lee, 2022. "Moments of Competitive Balance in Major League Soccer," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(3), pages 329-354, April.
    9. Young Lee & Rodney Fort, 2008. "Attendance and the Uncertainty-of-Outcome Hypothesis in Baseball," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 33(4), pages 281-295, December.
    10. Ira Horowitz, 2018. "Competitive Balance in the NBA Playoffs," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 63(2), pages 215-227, October.
    11. Young Hoon Lee, 2009. "The Impact of Postseason Restructuring on the Competitive Balance and Fan Demand in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 10(3), pages 219-235, June.
    12. Young Hoon Lee & Yongdai Kim & Sara Kim, 2018. "Unbiased Estimation of Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues with Unbalanced Schedules," Working Papers 1801, Nam Duck-Woo Economic Research Institute, Sogang University (Former Research Institute for Market Economy).
    13. Jan Šíma, 2013. "Static Competitive Balance of Three Chosen Central European Football Leagues," Ekonomika a Management, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2013(4).
    14. Brian Mills & Jason Winfree, 2018. "Athlete Pay and Competitive Balance in College Athletics," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(2), pages 211-229, March.
    15. Steven Salaga & Rodney Fort, 2017. "Structural Change in Competitive Balance in Big-Time College Football," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 50(1), pages 27-41, February.
    16. R. Alan Bowman & James Lambrinos & Thomas Ashman, 2013. "Competitive Balance in the Eyes of the Sports Fan," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 14(5), pages 498-520, October.
    17. Young Hoon Lee & Yongdai Kim & Sara Kim, 2019. "A Bias-Corrected Estimator of Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(4), pages 479-508, May.
    18. Dorian Owen, 2014. "Measurement of competitive balance and uncertainty of outcome," Chapters, in: John Goddard & Peter Sloane (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Professional Football, chapter 3, pages 41-59, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Andrew Larsen & Aju J. Fenn & Erin Leanne Spenner, 2006. "The Impact of Free Agency and the Salary Cap on Competitive Balance in the National Football League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 7(4), pages 374-390, November.
    20. Kelly Goossens, 2006. "Competitive balance in european football: comparison by adapting measures: national measure of seasonal imbalance and Top 3," Rivista di Diritto ed Economia dello Sport, Centro di diritto e business dello Sport, vol. 2(2), pages 77-122, Dicembre.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    College sports; competitive balance; women’s sports; basketball;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spe:wpaper:1117. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Victor Matheson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaseeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.