Assessing Overall Performance of Sports Clubs and Decomposing into Their On-Field and Off-Field Efficiency

Abstract

Generally, playing group management performance and financial management performance of sports clubs are assessed separately. We adopt a non-parametric methodology to assess overall performance, first conceptualising overall management as a production process comprising two serially linked subprocesses, namely, playing group management and financial management. Thereafter, we decompose overall performance to obtain estimates of performance at the subprocess level. Through this procedure, it is possible to determine whether a sports club’s on-field performance or off-field performance or both may contribute towards its inefficiency, if any, in overall management. Further, a model is developed to determine targets for inefficient clubs to become overall efficient. The method is applied to 18 clubs in the Australian rules football league. In the 2021 season, the results reveal that on-field performance, on average, is better than off-field performance, and variability in off-field performance is higher than that of on-field performance. The observed overall management inefficiency is mainly due to inefficiency in financial management. Results are robust to the weighting scheme adopted in the overall efficiency configuration.

Keywords

• Australian football league
• performance appraisal
• data envelopment analysis
• overall management efficiency
• on-field management efficiency
• off-field management efficiency