Historical and contemporary trends in competitive balance in the Commonwealth Games. [Las tendencias históricas y contemporáneas en el equilibrio competitivo en los Juegos de la Commonwealth].

RAMCHANDANI, Girish and WILSON, Darryl (2014). Historical and contemporary trends in competitive balance in the Commonwealth Games. [Las tendencias históricas y contemporáneas en el equilibrio competitivo en los Juegos de la Commonwealth]. RICYDE. Revista internacional de ciencias del deporte, 10 (35), 75-88.

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Abstract

Studies of competitive balance in sport have considered primarily professional leagues and team sports. This paper investigates trends in competitive balance in a multi-sport event context – the Commonwealth Games – using three distinct indicators. The investigation demonstrated that the Games have become significantly less competitive overall between 1930 and 2010 (p < 0.01) according to two indicators – the percentage of nations to win a medal point and the coefficient of variation in nations' market share (medal points won divided by medals points available). Conversely, one indicator – Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (the sum of the squares of nations' market shares in a given edition) – revealed that there has been a strong, albeit insignificant, improvement in the overall standard of the competition over the last twenty years (p > 0.10). Events contested by 'men only' were found to be the most balanced relative to both 'women only' and 'mixed / open' events across all indicators. Boxing and athletics emerged as the most balanced sports compared with diving, cycling, swimming and, to a lesser extent, weightlifting. The findings are of value to competition authorities to determine whether to implement corrective measures in order to maintain or improve competitive balance.

Item Type:	Article
Research Institute, Centre or Group - Does NOT include content added after October 2018:	Sport Industry Research Centre
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.5232/ricyde2014.03506
Page Range:	75-88
Depositing User:	Rebecca Jones
Date Deposited:	30 Jan 2014 09:24
Last Modified:	18 Mar 2021 07:55
URI:	https://shura.shu.ac.uk/id/eprint/7639

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