Playoffs or Just League: A Debate in Brazilian Football
Thadeu Gasparetto1, Angel Barajas1, 2, *
1 Faculty of Business Administration and Tourism, University of Vigo, Campus Universitario As Lagoas s/n, 32004, Ourense, Galicia, Spain
2 National Research University Higher School of Economics, Lebedeva st., 27, 614070, Perm, Russian Federation
Abstract
After several consecutive seasons in the league, the Campeonato Brasileiro may return to the playoffs format. The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) and some Brazilian clubs commented that this format will provide higher competitive balance and increase the interest of Brazilian football fans. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to assess the competitiveness and the interest of Brazilian fans in the last twenty-four seasons: Playoffs (1991-2002) and League (2003-2014). The competitiveness is evaluated by Herfindahl Index of Competitive Balance (HICB) and C4 Index of Competitive Balance and the interest measured by the average attendance to the stadiums. The results show that Brazilian League has become more balanced since 2003 season and football fans are more interested in the tournament with league format. The main conclusion is that the change to the playoffs would not improve the competitiveness and the interest of fans. Moreover some problems of the Brazilian football market are commented and some solutions proposed to improve it.
Keywords: Average Attendance, Brazilian League, C4 Index of Competitive Balance, Competition Format, Competitive Balance, Football, Herfindahl Index of Competitive Balance.
Article Information
Article History:
Received Date: 16/07/2015
Revision Received Date: 18/08/2015
Acceptance Date: 07/09/2015
Electronic publication date: 12/05/2016
Collection year: 2016
© Gasparetto and Barajas; Licensee Bentham Open.
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0)
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
* Address correspondence to this author at the Faculty of Business Administration and Tourism, University of Vigo, Spain; Tel: +34988368713;
Fax: +34988368923; E-mail: abarajas@uvigo.es
Open Peer Review Details |
Manuscript submitted on 16-07-2015 |
Original Manuscript |
Playoffs or Just League: A Debate in Brazilian Football |