Competitive balance and demand for football: A comparative study of Iran's pro league and four Europe's big league

Competitive balance is what turns football industry into an attractive event and in lack of this charming factor, the competitions will be boring and consequently their economical aspect will be disappeared and getting football out of industries will be likely. Therefore competitive powers of teams should be narrow and show appropriate balance. Then such competitions benefit from ambiguous final outcomes, and this ambiguity in outcome will be the main factor of the competitions’ attractiveness that is the main factor of overflowing income resources like sponsors, spectators, etc. toward these competitions. The present article aims at observing rate of competitive balance using 3 important indices of estimation of this criterion and its relation with procedure of spectators’ presence using Granger causality test, during 10 current courses of Football Champion League of Iran and compares its results with similar results obtained from 5 great leagues of Europe. The results show that Football Champion League of Iran, not only has structural similarity with league of France and A Class of Italy, but also the highest level of incomes has been obtained from selling tickets because of high competitive balance in the seasons of 2006–2007 and 2007–2008.