For achieving what we wanted, we needed professional leagues where the parity between all teams was as close as possible. Close parity between teams means affordable odds most of the time. We also wanted our operation generating profits all year.
We’ve had a look at the four professional sports leagues in the USA where there are no tie games which are the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL.
In the NFL, there are 32 teams and each of them is only playing 16 games during the whole season and the parity is not very good. Verdict: no appeal.
In the NBA, there are 30 teams playing 82 games each during the regular season, and the parity is also not too good. You sometimes get odds as high as -1800 meaning you have to invest $1,800 for making $100 and we’ve seen that favorite teams losing to underdog quite often. Odds at -500 to -900 are fairly common. Verdict: no appeal.
On the other hand, the MLB has 30 teams and each one is playing 162 games. The parity is very good so that the weakest teams are winning about 35% of their games and the best ones, 65% to 68% of theirs. They’re having 3 or 4 games series against the same team and very often, either team wins at least one game during a given series. Verdict: very appealing.
As for the NHL, there are 30 teams each playing 82 games. This is the professional league where parity is the best. Verdict: very appealing.