World sports events: uncertainty, predictability, attractiveness

World sports events: uncertainty, predictability, attractiveness

We examine world sporting events according to the ingredients that make up their quality: the format of the competition and its organization, important for the uncertainty of the sporting result , the distribution of income crucial for the competitive balance and the recruitment of athletes. (therefore the composition of the teams) , and the rules of the game in force in sport decisive for the quality of the show, the sporting stakes and the score. Within the limits of this chapter, a selection of some sporting events is necessary. It retains the Games Summer Olympics, the M Coupe wave of football, the Champions League UEFA and top five national football leagues (Germany, England, Spain, France, Italy). All of these sporting events contain the dimensions of globalization that were previously listed. On the other hand, it differs from the point of view of regulation.

The Summer Olympics are a global confrontation of the most successful athletes and, de facto , of all nations[7] the world in almost 300 Olympic sporting events . This is precisely a major source of their attractiveness to (TV) - spectators and sponsors as well as their multi-sport character, bringing together most of the important sports and being able to base assessments on the relative power of a nation (see l political and media use of the Olympic Games by the GDR or the USSR in the past). If the uncertainty of sporting results is real the level of each athlete, however the e multisport character makes performance quite predictable nations insofar c it -ci strongly depends on the size of the country (population) and their level of economic development . The format combines Olympic trials by knockout and, especially in team sports, qualification hens in what s each team plays all of his opponents in the same group . In the first case, the uncertainty of the result is ensured and evolves over the successive eliminations. In the second, the composition of the groups (random or oriented by the designation of seeds) influences the uncertainty of the results, the competitive balance and therefore the attractiveness for the spectators.

Observing the very strong inequality in the distribution of Olympic medals to the detriment of developing countries (developing countries), a first model (Andreff, 2001) showed that two explanatory variables of this distribution were highly significant, the population and the GDP per capita. A country is all the more efficient at the Olympic Games because it can mobilize significant human and economic resources. The benchmark model (Bernard & Busse, 2004) added two variables further improving the explanation of medal gains by nation: the advantage of being the host country of the Games and the political regime (in particular being a former communist country) . By adding a variable taking into account the differences in sports culture between the major regions of the world, another model (Andreff et al. , 2008) further improved the specification and made it possible to correctly predict 88% of the medals distributed at the Beijing Games. n (Andreff, 2009 a ). Unpredictable at only 12%, the results of the Summer Olympics do not present a strong uncertainty of the result by nation and only keep it at the level of each athlete and each sport . This is so because, when many sports are taken together in a global competition, demo-economic variables determine national sports results as they express the economic and demographic capacity of each country to mobilize resources to win medals.

Should we then imagine a regulation which increases the share of developing countries in the gains of Olympic medals? The answer is as improbable as the question since the only radical way would be to transform the developing countries into rich and developed countries, which no economic regulation has managed to achieve to date for other reasons . The competitive equilibrium of the Olympic Games is impossible as long as world economic development is very uneven. On the other hand, it seems normal (and Coubertinien) that any country in the world can participate in the Olympics, even if its chances of winning a medal are zero. Some less developed and poor countries do not even have the economic means to participate in the Games. They are helped by the IOC Olympic Solidarity program and can benefit from an invitation if no local athlete has accepted the minimum sports requirements . This double regulation aims to increase the equality of opportunities to participate in the xOJ but has no effect on the concentration of medals won by around forty developed countries and a few emerging countries. Other regulators (Chappelet & Kübler-Mabbott, 2008) aim to ensure that the Olympic Games take place under the conditions laid down in terms of relations between athletes and their national federations ( Arbitral Tribunal for Sport), doping control (the Agenc e World Anti Doping) and to preserve the ethics of games (of the IOC ethics Commission [8] ). If a regulation is lacking in the Olympics, it is rather on the side of transfers of athletes (40% of cases treated by the CAS) and their naturalization ( 6 infra ).

 

 

 

 

The M Coupe football wave of FIFA is the archetype cups and championships my mono sports between national teams . Its format contains the qualifiers and the dams in area s geographic s (UEFA, CONMEBOL, CONCACAF, etc.) and chickens (groups) in the first round of the final phase where each team will play all those of the group . From the 8 th final s' operates a knockout each game. FIFA organizes the pools for the first round so that there is no confrontation between the main favorites, who are chosen as seeds . It has been shown (Monk & Husch, 2009) that being seeded improves the results of the teams concerned - this makes them gain an average of 5 places in the ranking of the 32 participants in the final phase (by ranking the winner 1 st , the runner 2 e and the other teams according to their performance until the 32 th r ang). The format of the World Cup of football therefore reduces the competitive balance of the pools in the first round to increase the uncertain and balanced confrontations between favorites in the second round of the final phase. However, this does not exclude surprises such as the elimination of France and Italy in the first round of the 2010 WC.

M espite voluntary imbalance qualification hens, C oup of M wave of football results much more uncertain and has many more surpri her that OJ (Torgler 2004 ; Paul & Mitra, 2008). We recently tested it for the 2010 WC (M. & W. Andreff, 2010), the prediction model derived from this test giving poor results - correct prediction of two out of four semi-finalists[9] only . The two fundamental reasons for this difference in p rédictibilité with OJ its t : c / there is no compensation as possible between "losses" unexpected medal Olympic in some 're épreuv are sports and in earnings expected in other events , which is frequent for the important nations, because the FIFA competition is mono-sport ; b / performance of a national team in the World Championship of a single discipline sports n e a t not - or not primarily - determined s by economic variables. A country can devote its human and economic resources allocated to sport only football (or in any other sport) while another may not assign any, regardless of its level of economic development, its people and its regime Politics. The country's sports policy here plays an important role but has not been tested (econometrically) by economists  [10] for the time being .

Aside from the FIFA regulations that play on the composition of geographical areas, the choice of seeds and the not entirely random composition of the qualifying pools for the second round, the FIFA World Cup calls for more regulation? A priori it seems that not in view of the rather uncertain and unpredictable results, due to a certain number of surprising (unexpected) results, all this contributing to a television attractiveness of the football WC greater than that of the Olympic Games. in the last editions of African and Asian teams in the second round of the final phase also demonstrates a competitive balance which is improving and which is not only due to the rule of geographical rotation of the host continents (this n not South Africa, the host country, but Ghana who qualified for the second round in 2010 ).

The problems of regulation lie elsewhere with regard to the FIFA World Cup : do the national teams manage to dispose of the selected players when they operate abroad following their transfer to the world footballers market? Although the clubs to which they are transferred are in principle obliged by FIFA rules to release them to honor their selection for the national team. If they are made available by the clubs, is it free, if not at what price ? Is the authenticity of a national team competition compatible with the massive presence of naturalized players? For example , the Qatar football team does not contain any Qatari of origin, only naturalized neo-Qataris of Brazilian, Moroccan, African origin , etc.  [11] . Insofar as international transfers and naturalizations go beyond the sole case of football CM, the issue of labor market regulation (and nationality) is addressed as such later.

The European Football Champions League has the same competition format as the FIFA World Cup, starting with play-offs and play-offs , then a group stage and finally a knockout phase in a two -way match . It is larg ly as attractive to viewers throughout a season[12] . However, the two events differ from the point of view of regulation since the Champions League puts teams of sports clubs in competition and not national selections . Since the Bosm an ruling , there are no longer any nationality rules for the players lined up in the teams participating in the competition and it is therefore not as concerned as the FIFA World Cup by the effects of international transfers and d are naturalized players. In 2008, among the players playing in the Champions League , 107 were Brazilians, 34 Argentines, 72 French (but not all in French clubs) ... and only 30 English, despite the domination of the clubs of the English Premier League (including the winner Manchester United ).

The uncertainty of the result per match and per season is rather high in the Champions League , comparable to or slightly higher than that of the H-Cup in rugby and in the Euroleagues for women and men in basketball (Scelles, 2009). However, the duration of existence of the league , the unpredictability of he results is not very high e. Since 1993, four clubs have won the Champions League together 10 times in 18 years : Manchester United, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona , AC Milan; they therefore concentrated 56% of possible victories. They are the three richest clubs in the world (MU, Real, Milan) and the 7 th richest (Barcelona). Other indices confirm this high concentration. From 1999 to 2007, two Premier League clubs (Ma n chester United, Arsenal) each took part in the Champions League 9 times , two more (Chelsea, Liverpool) 6 times; three Spanish clubs have participated respectively 9 times (Real Madrid), 8 times (Barcelona) and 6 times (Valencia); in Italy, AC Milan 8 times, Juventus and Inter Milan 6 times; in the Bundesliga , Bayern Munich 8 times and in Ligue 1 Olympiqu e Lyonnais 8 times . Furthermore, 80% of the clubs participating in the Champions League are the same from one season to the next, making it an open league ( 3 below ) somewhat resembling a closed league.

Given the rules for the redistribution of television income between participants in the Champions League[13] , each year the clubs the richest in Europe receive income from UEFA which further increase the discrepancies financial compared to less wealthy clubs[14] . Gains from the Champions League , every year, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, AS Roma, Bayern Munich, Werder Bremen, Schalke 04, Olympique Lyonnais, FC Porto, PSV Eindhoven are between 20 and 50 million € . He follows them to a virtuous circle: richer, they recruit more, increasing their chances to qualify again in the Champions League the following season, therefore enriched to r, recruit, and so on. F or the vast majority of European clubs, the counterpart is a vicious circle of non-qualification, lower income, lower recruitment (Andreff, 2009).

Two issues call nt therefore possible regulation: a / Financial income concentration on few clubs dice ends too clearly results in the Champions League , it should ensure that the inequality of wealth among clubs in Europe will end up not by destroy the uncertainty of the results; b / good performances in the Champions League deteriorate the competitive balance of national leagues, reinforce financial inequalities between clubs and, therefore, the more unbalanced a national league the more likely it is that its flagship clubs perform well in the Champions League (Andreff & Bourg, 2006). The five top ranking clubs combine alone 50% of revenues in the Premier League and 10% tou s the income distributed by the Champions League ; a comparable concentration is observed in smaller leagues such as Belgium and Portugal (Gouguet & Primault, 2008). Ligue 1 is the most balanced of the five big leagues because its clubs, little victorious at European level, do not obtain (apart from Lyon) the financial gains which would allow them to regularly dominate their national championship. How far will viewers follow this march towards the financial concentration of sporting victories? The regulation that the Champions League would need is at least as much financial as sporting, including because of its interactions with the national leagues.