Measuring efficiency of Thailand's football premier leagues using data envelopment analysis

Football is considered one of the most popular sports in Thailand and has high influence on the nation economy. Thai Premier League is football competition at the top of Thai football league system. The objective of the paper is to evaluate both sportive and financial efficiency of football clubs in Thai Premier League during 2014-2015 football seasons with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model: CCR DEA and super- efficiency DEA. We consider three input factors: the stadium capacity, the capital Investment, the administrative expenses. Nine output variables investigated on the efficiency of football clubs are the number of supportive attendances, the total score in 2015, the total revenues, net assets, the number of trophies, the qualification for AFC for the last and the next season, the qualification for Thai Premier League for the last and the next season. The results show that two football clubs are not efficient. Later, it is found that both football clubs mentioned are relegated to lower league in the next competition 2016/2017. This evidence illustrates that super-efficiency DEA models can be successively to distinguish the efficient clubs and rank the football clubs in Thai Premier League.