Measuring efficiency of German football teams by data envelopment analysis (Q1762893)

Taking data for the season 1999/2000 we study the efficiency of football teams in the German Bundesliga by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). DEA allows to measure efficiency when decision making units have multiple inputs and multiple outputs. Our input variables are wage bills, separately for players and the coach. Output is measured by points awarded, average stadium utilization and total revenues. Our results show that efficiency scores are not correlated with rank in the league and that medium- and small-sized teams like Ulm often outperform well-known teams like Borussia Dortmund. We decompose the sources of inefficiency into technical inefficiency and scale inefficiency and test for the sensitivity of results with respect to different input-output combinations.