May 29, 2009

“Parity” in soccer versus parity in American sports

By: Sonny Bunch

An interesting discussion is going on over at the League, where Will laments the recent top-heaviness of European soccer. I make the point in the comments that this isn’t a recent phenomenon, while commenter “Nav” writes “i suspect, that much like the myth of american social mobility, this notion that soccer is less competitive than american sports is as a perception as it is based in reality.” [sic all lower cases]

This is, how do you say, nonsense on stilts (at least as far as it relates to sports; the mobility of social-economic status is something we can address at a later date). Let’s go to the numbers.

In the last decade, 8 different teams have won the World Series. The Yankees and Red Sox have each won twice, along with one apiece for the Angels, Diamondbacks, Marlins, White Sox, Cardinals, and Phillies. There is, simply put, tons of parity in baseball.

In the last decade, 87 different teams have won the Super Bowl. Yes, the Patriots have won three times and the Steelers twice, but five other teams have won one apiece: the Giants, Indy, Pittsburgh, Tampa, Baltimore, and St. Louis. There is, simply put, tons of parity in football.

In the last decade, 5 different teams have won the NBA Finals. The NBA is the closest thing America has to a top-heavy sports league, as the Lakers won 3 titles in that stretch while the Spurs won 4. Even then, you have a title apiece for the Celtics, Pistons, and Heat. There might not be a “ton” of parity in the NBA — it is, historically, the American league most prone to top-heaviness (the Lakers and Celtics in the 80s, the Bulls and Rockets in the 90s, the Lakers and Spurs in the ’00s) — but even then you still have a fair amount of churn.

Compare that to the Premier League in England. Since the inception of the Premier League in ’92, only four teams have won the League. There’s 11 titles for Man U., 3 for Arsenal, 2 for Chelsea, and 1 for, um, Blackburn. (For the last ten years, the same number of years considered for the American leagues, that number drops to 3.) In any given season, the top four finishers is typically some variation of Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Liverpool. There is NO parity in the Premier League.

La Liga is slightly better: Over the last ten years, four teams have won (Real Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Deportiva La Coruna). Still, that’s exceptionally top-heavy, far more so than any American sports league, including the NBA. There’s really not much parity in the Spanish league

The Bundesliga is also quite top-heavy, though slightly less so than La Liga or the Premiership: five wins for Bayern Munich, and then five more titles for five other teams. The Germans are better than their English or Spanish friends, but don’t have nearly as much parity as either the MLB or the NFL.