With the NFL regular season over, let's take a look at how competitively
balanced the NFL was since 1981. As a reminder, I am using the
Noll-Scully measure of competitive balance
which statistically measures the actual performance from the ideal
performance. An ideal level of competitive balance using the
Noll-Scully measure would equal 1.000, and levels above 1.000 means that
the league has some competitive imbalance, with higher Noll-Scully
numbers meaning more competitive imbalance. (
Here is a step-by-step guide if you want to calculate this on your own.) By competitive balance I am looking at how well a league's standings
are in relation to a league where wins and losses are determined
randomly. In order to do this, I am going to look at the NFL season statistically
as a sample and as a population - mainly for comparison purposes.
The data comes from profootball-reference.com.
As you can see below, whether I use a sample or the population, the Noll-Scully measure of competitive balance is very similar. Additionally, the level of competitive balance has not changed much over the last few seasons, with the Noll-Scully for a sample in 2017 equal to 1.601 and for the population equal to 1.576. So even with the Brown's win-less season, competitive balance has not declined much from last season.
