How We Can Enhance Spectator Attendance for the Sustainable Development of Sport in the Era of Uncertainty: A Re-Examination of Competitive Balance

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper tackles an interesting topic, but until 2017, that could be a problem. Another negative element is that it talks about COViD-19 in the summary when it has no implication on the objectives of the work.
The introduction of the work is quite important in terms of bibliographic references, but the literature review indicates authors from 1950 or 1970, more than 50 years ago, these references cannot be extrapolated to the current reality 50 years later.
The material and methods section should be explained more specifically, and giving the structure of a study of these characteristics.
The results are very scarce, I propose that they be expanded and that the tables follow the same nomenclature (semicolon).
The discussion should be improved since it is very brief, and should be contrasted with other authors.
The bibliography is not according to the journal regulations.
The article should be improved a lot and in this format it is not publishable

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

no comments

A good work was presented

Author Response

Many thanks for your encouragement.

Reviewer 3 Report

Sustainability-901561 presents results related to competitive balance. While some parts of this manuscript were interesting, other areas could be improved. I hope the authors consider my feedback.

MAJOR COMMENTS

• In the opinion of this reviewer, the authors may want to re-structure the article such that Sections 1 and 2 are better integrated. If this is completed by the authors, text should also be drastically reduced. The traditional structure of a research paper includes a brief literature review in the Introduction. Overall, the Introduction and Background in this area seems like unnecessary overkill. The same could be applied to parts of the Discussion.
• Section 3.3: Given the context of the paper, there is no real need to present the full statistical model. Instead, describe the analyses in the text. Consider deletion and revision.
• No clear limitations paragraph?
• Present some actual statistics in the abstract.

MINOR COMMENTS

• Line 36: Define “U.S.” before abbreviating.
• Line 83-84: Cite a reference to support this strong statement.
• Table 1: No need to provide Min and Max because SD is already your measure of variability (and there also appears to be no outliers per the Min and Max).
• Line 309: List the p-value (although not significant) here and in other areas where appropriate.
• Please make any changes to the abstract that align with those made to the text.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have done a good job and this is ok for publication

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have addressed this reviewer's previous concerns.