When Manchester City held off Liverpool to take the Premier League title on Sunday, it was a victory not only for City, but the league itself. Liverpool had already gained their own win, qualifying for the Uefa Champions League final by beating Barcelona over a thrilling two-legged tie.
The Premier League has enjoyed a record-breaking 27th season, thanks to Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur joining Liverpool to monopolise both European club finals. Leagues are group endeavours — an economist might say joint products — and the English league has beaten rivals in Spain, Germany, France and Italy.
But sports are peculiar markets, in which “pure monopoly is disaster”, as the US economist Walter Neale noted in 1964. He meant that no team wants to eliminate all of its competitors because that would mean no matches to attract fans and no television rights to sell. This warning also applies to national leagues in the age of global sports.