What makes elite leagues professional?

Abstract

Elite professional sport leagues are a global social-economical phenomenon. The fact that only few leagues achieve the elite category does not occur by chance. Four leagues from North America and five are European (NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, EPL, Bundesliga, LaLiga, Serie A y Ligue 1) were evaluated. In order to demonstrate that are these leagues, and no other, the most significant ones, we have utilised non-linear methodologies (Power Laws, Entropy and probability of success) which allow us to go deep in the aspects that we understand as the most relevant ones: access to economic resources, competitive format, and competitive balance. All these nine leagues have access to more economical resources (Total Revenue: €45.712 M mill/season 2015) than the rest of the leagues in the world, constitute huge social transcendence, accumulate the best players worldwide and their components are confronted under different competition formats (closed or open leagues), but are highly competitive (Normalised Entropy: 0.976-0.998 – Performance Differential: 0.0159-0.0611). We can affirm that the main professional sport leagues present specific profiles, compared to the rest of the leagues in the world. The availability of economical resources, the competition format, and the uncertainty related to the match and league results are the factors that determine if a professional sport leagues can obtain global relevance, attracting millions of supporters worldwide and significant economical resources.