Power Ranking Europe's Top 5 Leagues on Entertainment Alone

Forget which league is best. Which league is the most entertaining?

Fans of each particular European league will argue for days, weeks and months about why theirs is best. But today we're talking about which leagues provide the best entertainment.

So, how does one measure entertainment value? It's a subjective process, but factors like goals, parity, outsized personalities and outrageous antics tend to count for something.

Read on for the five most entertaining leagues in Europe, and leave your own in the comments.

5. Bundesliga

For fans of: Efficiency, organization, offense, compound words, top dogs, rising stars, David Hasselhoff

OK, so Bayern Munich win the title every year. That's just something we'll have to—wait. What's that? They haven't won it the last two years? Brilliant!

That's good news for all of us, as is Bayern's burgeoning rivalry with Borussia Dortmund. Speaking of which, Dortmund's assault on Bayern's long-term supremacy has been successful partly because of a roster that features a bunch of rising stars like Mario Götze, Marco Reus (admittedly, he just signed) and Robert Lewandowski.

Average age? 22.

That's not all. Götze and Reus both spent at least some of their youth careers with Dortmund. How many of your title-winning club's players came through the ranks, eh?

Even more fun: the names. SpVgg Greuther Fürth will be playing in the Bundesliga for the first time this season. SpVgg stands for Spielvereinigung, and that's a big ol' German compound word that means something like "Our name is cooler than yours."

Last season, with relatively tamer team names like Borussia Mönchengladbach, FSV Mainz 05 and FC Kaiserslautern, the Bundesliga managed an impressive 875 goals, or 2.86 per match. And all in all, the league always produces high-quality matches that are fun to watch.

Oh, and David Hasselhoff? Germans love the dude. That is all.

4. Russian Premier League

For fans of: Oil barons, Russian Strongmen, hypothermia, Dagestani galacticos, Cold War nostalgia

We've come a long way, Russia.

Back in the '80s, you were our sworn enemy and we were all getting ready for you and the Cubans to invade so we could live in the mountains and scream "Wolverines!" before, during and after any raids we might or might not be planning with Charlie Sheen and Patrick Swayze.

Or we figured we could send Alec Baldwin to help your Scottish-sounding submarine captains defect to America. Either way would have worked.

But no more! These days we enjoy your soccer and your crazy, billionaire owners and your nonsensically star-studded lineups at clubs like Anzhi Makhachkala.

We also love the fact that somehow, some way, Andrei Arshavin still manages to be a big star and one of your league's best players.

Magic, I say.

3. Eredivisie

For fans of: Feeder clubs, dikes and levees, formerly great European titans, clubs named after mythical heroes

Ajax is the name of a mythological Greek hero who held off hordes of Trojan warriors with nothing but a big freaking spear and the oversized cojones to match.

Ajax is also the name of the most successful club in Holland. It's located in Amsterdam, which is, like, the coolest town ever (don't be a square, dude).

Back in the day, Ajax challenged for European trophies. Nowadays, they still have the famed youth academy and it still pumps out great players. But now the graduates tend to head off to greener pastures after a few years.

No biggie. While they're in Holland, they're playing some entertaining football. The Eredivisie is still outrageously fun to watch, and that's true even when Ajax and his spear aren't kicking tail and taking names.

At one point last year, there were something like six teams bunched within a few points of each other at the top of the table. Ajax ended up winning the title—like always, true—but along the way there were a bunch of ridiculous scorelines and chaos-infused matches.

Tune in sometime and see for yourself. The Dutch Eredivisie is European football's Trojan horse of a league.

Turn your back on it for one second and pandemonium will break out around you in no time.

2. La Liga

For fans of: Duopolies, Galacticos, tiki-taka, crazed club elections, regional tensions, super-duper stars

We all know the story backwards and forwards. Still, it's fun every year.

Barcelona wins the league. Real Madrid holds a presidential election. The old president gets voted out for the new guy, who's really the old guy. The new guy who's really the old guy promises to adopt a new playing style, which is really an old style with new players and some epic investment.

Real Madrid wins league. Barca holds presidential election. Rinse. Lather. Repeat—and spend, spend, spend.

No one else really has a chance (last team outside the duopoly to win the title: Valencia in 2003-04), and in reality, that makes La Liga a bit boring sometimes.

But it's only boring until you want El Clasico and you see grown men "fighting" with wrist-slaps, handbags and writhing simulation. Nothing really comes close to topping it.

Toss in the monarchical underpinnings of Real Madrid and Barcelona's more independent ideological sympathies (it's so much more than a club, bro), and you've got a match made in pure Iberian bliss.

Alas, the Clasico doesn't form the entirety of the season. The rest of the time, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and their respective teams beat the snot out of plucky punching bags like Getafe, Rayo Vallecano and Real Zaragoza.

Still, even that can be quite a sight.

1. Premier League

For fans of: English superiority complexes, football's spiritual home, cliches, nouveau-riche clubs, breakneck speeds, leg-breaking tackles, Gary Neville

Remember, kiddies (and silly Americans). It's not the English Premier League. No. Stop that right now.

It's THE Premier League, and it's governed by THE Football Association, and if they could find a legal way to force THE Ohio State University to stop using that word, they would definitely do it.

As they've told us so many times before, the English invented football. We're all really impressed.

No, really. The soccer—sorry, couldn't resist—really is the best in the world, week-in, week-out. And on any given day, any team can beat any other team. All the cliches really do work.

And in case we forgot, the last day of the most recent season reminded us how great the EPL (oopsies) can be.

Spanish fans will claim their league is better, but for entertainment value, nothing can match THE Premier League.

The speed is incredible, the tackles are fierce and the rivalries are bitter. Plus, thanks to all the TV money, clubs have been able to bring in foreign players. That's made the league a big melting pot of talent, ideas and styles.

All that money could ruin everything one day, especially if the gap between the haves and have-nots keeps ballooning. But for now, we'll all just have to content ourselves with hating Manchester City and Chelsea (oh, and Manchester United).

It's nice to have a big, bad villain to root against. In more ways than one.

Follow @MikeCummings37