Premier league: Study provides evidence of two tier competition emerging since 2000s

Forty season analysis offers quantitative evidence of a lack of competitiveness emerging in line with TV revenue and external investment

INSIGHT SFI RESEARCH CENTRE FOR DATA ANALYTICS, DUBLIN: Statisticians from the Insight SFI Research Centre in University College Dublin have revealed through statistical modelling that competitiveness in the English Premier League has declined steadily since the early 2000s, resulting in an ever-increasing separation of teams into two distinct groups. The separation coincides with increasing TV revenue and external investment over the period, say researchers.

Professor Nial Friel and his team published the findings recently in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrsssa/qnad007

The research set out to assess the issue of competitive balance in the context of the English First Division/Premier League over more than 40 seasons. Prof Friel’s analysis provides evidence suggesting a structural change around the early 2000s from a reasonably balanced league to a two-tier league, with competition within, but not between, the groups.

‘There has been much debate in the media and in the public about just how competitive the English Premier League is,’ says Friel, a principal investigator at the Insight SFI Research Centre. ‘We have explored this question by developing a statistical modelling approach using techniques from the analysis of network data.’

The study has uncovered evidence that the league was quite balanced from around 1980 to 2003. However, subsequent to that, the research provides strong evidence that the league has become more imbalanced since. From 2003/2004 we see an emergence of seasons where the league can be  separated into two distinct groups of teams.

‘Additionally, we find that the number of teams in the strongest group has tended to be quite small for the past decade or so indicating the emergence of a so-called ‘big-six’ group of teams,’ says Prof Friel.

‘Our findings may serve to provide the Premier League with quantitative evidence of a lack of competitiveness over the past two decades, which in turn may inform policy and debate around potential reform of the league structure to address this issue. For example, it would be of interest to understand the effect which a more equal redistribution of television revenue may have on competitive balance.’

Nial Friel is Professor of Statistics, School of Mathematics and Statistics at University College Dublin.

For further information contact Louise Holden, FH Media Consulting Ltd, louise@fhmediaconsulting.com

Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics

The Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics is one of Europe’s largest data analytics research organisations, with over 450 researchers, more than 80 industry partners and €150+ million in funding. Its research spans Fundamentals of Data Science, Sensing and Actuation, Scaling Algorithms, Model Building, Multi-Modal Analysis, Data Engineering and Governance, Decision Making, and Trustworthy AI.

Insight is made up of four host institutions at DCU, University of Galway, UCC and UCD. Insight’s partner sites are Maynooth University, Tyndall, TCD and UL.