North American and European Perspectives on Competitive Balance - Essay Example

? Critically compare and contrast the North American and European perspectives on competitive balance in light of the professional sports organizational contexts. Illustrate your analysis with examples from both the European and North American professional Introduction Sports have become one of the world’s arena dominated by the display of extreme skills among individuals from dissimilar nations. Sports have also proved to be significant in the determination of the world’s economy. The critical theme in sports is competition, and an effective balance should exist among the leagues. Competitive balance incorporates the real presentation that would have resulted in case all teams in the league possessed equal potentiality in playing. A higher competitive balance would be determined if the disparity of the league presentation is minimal in relation to the perfect league (Zimbalist, 508). Most persons have made sports as their professions through which, they earn their livelihood. Europe and North America are among the regions with significant ventures in sports. Both North America and Europe tend to expose their superiority in sports, but in unique ways. The regions show outstanding approaches on different types of sports such as football, boxing, basketball and athletics. North America and Europe possess similar elements in sports that are susceptible to evaluations to allow comparison and the determination of contrasts. The comparison of the sports between the two regions incorporates the balancing of the similar aspects of their sports process. The contrasts would entail the disparities in the elements of sports and the procedures incorporated in the regional sports of North America and Europe. Sporting teams involve in a combined production during competition and the value of their results contributes to their product sold to the spectators. Sports are also unique because the predetermination of the results lowers the public’s turn up and decreases the demand. This exercise would incorporate the inclusion of credible examples to enhance the vividness of evaluated sports instances. European sports have postulated a significant dominance in one sport, the football. The football has become a source of aesthetics in the European countries such as England and Spain. Therefore, the European football has attracted many individuals from various regions of the globe. Consequently, the European football has undergone modifications in every aspect accompanied by enhanced degree of specializations. Europe possesses one of the largest markets of football kits and the football personalities. Europe has also the efficiently balanced football schedule that offers guidelines throughout the leagues throughout the sporting year (Zimbalist, 508). In contrast, the North America practices a diversified sports system in their competitions. The Americans have ensured minor disparities between different sports and activities. The North Americans have ensured proficient in other sports such as athletics, basketball, tennis and rugby. The consideration of different sports equally might attribute to better economic welfare since there are more sources of revenue to the states. The sports also exhibit different competitive balances in their performance equally. For instance, the National Basketball Association has attained two champions, the Celtics who dominated in 1959 and ten years after and the 76ers, which won thereafter. Other teams have also surfaced in the championships winnings such as the Lakers, Pockets and Pistons, bulls. This competition in basketball also shows that the North Americans engage actively in more than one sport, unlike the Europe. The European sports exhibit a significant degree of flexibility regarding the teams participating in tournaments and leagues. The European football leagues entail the pyramid system, which allows for the appreciation and depreciation of ranks of the teams basing on performance. The European leagues exist in different categories for instance the National League and division two (Zimbalist, 507). There is a disparity in the values of the categories, and the National League contributes substantially to the countries’ revenues. European sports exhibit distinct professionalism in the organization and implementation of the sports. Conversely, the division two poses lower quality in the games, the soccer tickets are relatively low and the players are not proficient to the National League. The Europeans have realized the essence of football contribution to their economy hence, they appreciate it at all levels. The best four teams in each category is promoted to the next level while the last four teams in every season are relegated to the preceding categories. For instance, the first four teams in every football league are promoted to play the leading league of the European continent, UEFA. Therefore, the competition balance is mixed in European football (Zimbalist, 507). While the European football exhibits the pyramid system in their organization and performance, the North American soccer practices a closed system in their competitions. The North American structure of football fosters autonomy in their football leagues. The teams of diverse categories are entitled to play within their stages without overlapping. Every league encompasses a maximum of thirty-two teams because too many teams cannot engage in competition for a single objective. The North American structure is organized to foster diversification in sports. The mode enhances chances for developments in other forms of sports such as boxing and athletics. Europe exhibit limited scoring context and exhibit higher competitive balance while the North American sports experience higher scoring contest, as a result the competitive balance is minimal. There is more opposition among the teams in the European leagues. Therefore, there are frequent derbies in Europe while the north American sports show fewer opposition clubs. Most fans assume that the best teams are favored in the rulings of the games. In North America, fewer teams dominate the league and the competition balance is lower. The European leagues manifest higher competition balance exhibited through prevalent ties of clubs at a different position in the rankings. The European leagues exhibit a versatile competition balance, there is upward mobility of teams and higher concentration on the league title (Zimbalist, 506). In North America, there is an extensive system of restraints among the team and the player to develop the competitive balance in the sports clubs. The restraints encompass the draft mode for player selection the salary, entertainments tax and revenues. In America, the restraints are critical since they are liable for the influence of players’ performance, the team's reputation and the significant contribution to the overall economy of the state. Contrarily, the European sports system does not depend on the team and player's restraints for effectiveness. The European sports system stipulates no emphasis on the restraints but emphasizes on the scrutiny of the actual performance in the pitch for the determination of other attributes before the revenue and financial considerations. The European sports systems utilize diverse methodology to determine the restraints through the team management, players’ income and the nationality to determine the financial capability of the individuals. The union bargaining is prevalent in the North America sports as compared to Europe. The controls manifested among the teams and the players in North America, are constituted in the labor acts governing sports. The sports are regarded as labor intensive and the unions involved are entitled to avail the guidelines concerning the degree of the players’ involvements in sports. Hence, the unions set standard salaries and advocate for fair tax rates on players. Similarly, the North American model allows for the combination of different personnel working as a team to regulate the union under different specialties. For instance, human rights experts gauging the labor with the salaries to ensure fair pay to the players. In the European sports, the players and the sports unions are least regarded. Majority of the teams and players possess individualistic managements, and as a result, the teams have diverse policies governing them in sports. For instance, different teams and players have their managers performing their management roles solely. The European teams rely on Federation International for Football Association (FIFA) for most of the functions (Zimbalist, 506). Nevertheless, the systems employed in sports between the North America and Europe share some aspects in common such as the ends and means. Both systems target the encouragement of the utmost competition for the public gains. The modes tend to determine whether sports foster pure entertainment or encompass other unethical social activity. The systems are also in search of attaining the effective balance between the competition in sports and collaboration. Besides the quest for the common balance, the models also target the fairness and the improbability of the results by the teams. Both the European and the North American perspectives operate to protect sports from external interventions such as destructive economical prevalence and politics. The models are also similar, for instance, the European sports are distinct in their pyramid system allowing for promotion and demotion. The North America is also similar in their horizontal closed approach since they base on the level of the team or player. According to the North American system of sports, the teams’ performance serves a vital role in the formation of the league membership though there are no official rules. The creation of membership in the European leagues also depends on the performance of the teams in the league. The methods are also common since they are both susceptible to commercialism and modification. Conclusion The evaluation of the European and the North American practices in sports practices has attained success. The comprehensive analysis of the dissimilarities in the professional performances in the leagues between Europe and the North America has retained the desire for the determination of the concrete differences between the models. The comparison and contrast of the models between the two regions provided some doubtable possibilities regarding the models. The little regard concerning the teams and the players’ welfare leaves the mechanism of survival of the involved teams and players unanswered (Zimbalist, 509). The European model has fostered maintenance of the movement towards the unified negotiation mode and the exemption of the labor consensuses. Even though, the enhancements of the models tend to contradict the comprehensively formulated schedules, they should attribute to significant gains of both the players and their teams. Works Cited Zimbalist A. Sports As Business. London: Oxford University Press, 2004 Read More