As I was writing my previous post on the Ballon D’or, I stumbled on a question which I had surprisingly no prior answer or knowledge on. A question which is frequently debated, but has no clear answer: which league is the most competitive among the top 5 leagues. After hours of research I fell on a LinkedIn post from Roberto Di Gaudio (Head of Match Analysis at Torino). He discusses that the use of the Herfindahl–Hirschman index is the key metric to identify the most competitive league in the world.

For a bit of context, the Herfindahl–Hirschman index is a statistical equation used in economics to determine the competitivity of a specific market. To calculate you must compute the “sum of the squares of the market shares held by each agent.” (Di Gaudio) We will use the same equation in order to determine the most competitive league among the top 5 leagues. When the answer is closer to 0, the market, or league, in this scenario, is competitive, however when it skews towards 1 it is less competitive.

Di Gaudio, in his post, used data from the past 10 years, and found that the Premier League and LaLiga are tied as the most competitive leagues, with a Herfindahl–Hirschman index of 0.42. In this post, I will go one further and use data since the inauguration of the Premier League in the 1992-93 season. This is what I found:

Side note: Serie A and Ligue 1 have one fewer league winners because in the 92-93 season Marseille’s league was stripped as they were found guilty of bribery and in the Serie A no winner was awarded in the 04-05 season because of the infamous Juventus Calciopoli scandal.

Based on these results, surprisingly, Ligue 1 is considered the most competitive league in the world with a Herfindahl–Hirschman index of 0.2, followed closely by the Premier League with an index of 0.26. The Bundesliga is by far the least competitive league with a Herfindahl–Hirschman index of 0.11 over the penultimate league.

What does this show? Firstly, Bayern Munich has by far the largest Herfindahl–Hirschman index among teams in the top 5 leagues. This showcases their dominance and almost monopoly of the Bundesliga in the last 30 years or so. Furthermore, Ligue 1 being the most competitive league in the world is extremely surprising, as not many would’ve touted them to take top spot. Additonally, comparing the results found by Di Gaudio, Ligue 1 jumps from 4th to 1st place, which highlights PSG’s very recent dominance in France. Lastly, comparing with Di Gaudio’s post, calculating the Herfindahl–Hirschman index starting from 92-93 season showcases that the top 5 leagues are seen as much more competitive when taking into account the 32 year scope rather than the 10 year one done by Di Gaudio.

Link to Di Gaudio’s LinkedIn post:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7305913821347434497/