Hidden power law patterns in the top European football leagues

Sergio Da Silva, Matsushita Raul and Silveira Eliza

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Because sports are stylized combat, sports may follow power laws similar to those found for wars, individual clashes, and acts of terrorism. We show this fact for football (soccer) by adjusting power laws that show a close relationship between rank and points won by the clubs participating in the latest seasons of the top fifteen European football leagues. In addition, we use Shannon entropy for gauging league competitive balance. As a result, we are able to rank the leagues according to competitiveness.

Keywords: Power laws; Wars; Sports; Terrorism; Football; Soccer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C16 Y80 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-spo
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Journal Article: Hidden power law patterns in the top European football leagues (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:48226

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