By Robbie Butler

On this day in 1776, Adam Smith published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, a work widely regarded as the foundation of modern economics. Smith set out to explain how economies generate prosperity, why some nations become wealthy, and how markets organise production and exchange. Two hundred and fifty years later, many of the ideas he developed, from incentives to competition, remain central to economic thinking.

One of Smith’s most famous examples was the pin factory, used to illustrate the productivity gains that arise from the division of labour. When workers specialise in different tasks, overall output rises dramatically.

Sport is a great example of this. A modern football team comprises many specialised roles.. Rather than each player performing the same tasks, teams rely on defenders to ocus on preventing chances, midfielders organise possession and pass the ball, and forwards to concentrate on scoring. This specialisation increases the collective productivity of the team, much like the division of labour increased output in Smith’s factory.

It would take nearly two centuries before economists began systematically applying these ideas to sport when, in 1956 Simon Rottenberg, published “The Baseball Players’ Labor Market” in the Journal of Political Economy. Rottenberg analysed the labour market for professional baseball players and introduced concepts that remain central to sports economics today, including competitive balance, allocation of talent across teams and marginal product of labour.

Professional sports leagues provide rich settings for studying markets and institutions. Teams compete for talent, players respond to incentives, and league rules shape how resources are allocated. Salary caps, transfer markets, and revenue sharing all reflect questions that would have been familiar to Smith: how markets function, how competition operates, and how institutions influence outcomes.

At the same time, sport highlights an important tension that Smith himself recognised. Smith warned that producers in the same industry often have incentives to coordinate in ways that restrict competition. Sports leagues illustrate this dynamic clearly. Clubs must compete on the field, yet they must also cooperate to produce the product itself. A match requires two teams and a common set of rules. The governance of leagues therefore involves balancing competition with coordination.

Two hundred and fifty years after The Wealth of Nations, Smith’s core insight still resonates. Economic analysis provides powerful tools for understanding how incentives and institutions shape outcomes. From eighteenth-century pin factories to modern football leagues, the fundamental questions remain remarkably similar.

By Robbie Butler

This year marked the 10th Sports Economics Workshop at University College Cork, a milestone that reflects more than a decade of research, collaboration, and lively discussion in the field. The first workshop was held in 2014, and it has since become a regular fixture, bringing together scholars working at the intersection of sport, economics, and performance.

This year's event will be held on Friday 17 April in UCC. The focus this year is on football (soccer) and will showcase a range of research topics, including player pay, performance, equality, and penalties.

Reaching a tenth workshop is a significant achievement. Over the years, the series has created a space for rigorous academic exchange while maintaining a welcoming and collegial atmosphere. It has resulted in various papers being accepted for publication and has helped develop personal and professional relationships that have endured over time.
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Here’s to the next decade.

By Robbie Butler

VAR was introduced with the promise of improvement: greater accuracy, fewer errors, and fairer outcomes. In practice, its most profound impact has not been on results, but on how football is consumed. The game now feels different, not because mistakes no longer happen, but because the nature of those mistakes, and how we respond to them, has been fundamentally altered.

Football has never been a scientific exercise. Its laws are formally codified, but their application has always been subjective. Fouls, handballs, dangerous play, and even offside judgments rely on interpretation, context, and feel. This is not a flaw; it is the essence of the sport. Football is played at speed, officiated by humans, and watched as a form of escapism. Error is not an intrusion into the game, it is part of it.

VAR attempts to impose a scientific framework onto something that is not scientific. It treats interpretation as if it can be resolved through precision, freeze frames, and replay angles. Yet in doing so, it does not remove subjectivity; it merely relocates it. Judgement still exists, but now it is mediated through screens, protocols, and delays. The human element remains, only slower and less visible.

The result is a game that feels provisional. Events seem to happen tangentially. Man City attack and score, while in a room miles away, officals are looking at a possible penalty at the other end.

Yesterday’s controversy offered a clear example. A goal was correctly ruled out after VAR intervention, yet the reaction focused less on correctness than on loss. Television pundit Gary Neville remarked: “You have just killed one of the moments of the season.” The decision may have been right, but the moment was gone. That distinction matters.

Goals were once instant emotional events. Now they are pending decisions. Players celebrate cautiously. Fans hesitate. Supporters at home wait for confirmation before allowing themselves to feel anything at all. Celebration has become conditional, and emotion delayed. Even when a goal stands, the release is diminished, filtered through waiting, checking, and explanation.

VAR does not resolve subjectivity; it extends it. Debates that once ended with the referee’s whistle now continue through replays, graphics, and studio discussion. The game stops, restarts, and sometimes rewinds. Matches last longer, not only in minutes played but in mental bandwidth demanded from the viewer. Football becomes something to be assessed rather than absorbed.

This is not an argument against rules being applied, nor a defence of poor officiating. It is an observation that football’s appeal has never rested on perfect accuracy. Its power lies in flow, momentum, and shared emotional experience. By trying to make football scientific, VAR overlooks what makes the sport distinctive.

Errors are human. Football is human. As a form of escapism, it thrives on immediacy, not verification. VAR adds another layer of process to a game that was never designed for it. In doing so, it hasn’t changed what football is played for. But it has changed how it is felt.

Football remains football. But it is now watched with caution, consumed with delay, and celebrated only once permission has been granted. At least that is how I now consume the game. 

By Robbie Butler

One of the parties in government in Ireland recently took to X to highlight what it believes is the ‘unfair’ pricing of the Republic of Ireland football jersey. The tweet – accompanied by a short video – read: “The price of Irish football jerseys is too high. That’s why Senator Gareth Scahill is calling on the FAI and kitmakers to review the pricing structure for their jerseys.” It is an interesting intervention.

Market dynamics in this space have changed quickly. Until Troy Parrott’s heroics against Portugal and Hungary, demand for Republic of Ireland jerseys appeared relatively muted. Events in November, however, sent supporters scrambling for the latest kit, which quickly sold out. I wrote about this in late November.

Supply chain issues now appear to have been resolved and prices set accordingly. The Adults Ireland Home Replica Jersey is currently priced at €105. Expensive? Certainly. Too high? That is for the market to decide, not a politcal party.

There is also some historical perspective worth considering. The Republic of Ireland failed to qualify for the 1998 World Cup – the peak of my own jersey-wearing days. Instead, I bought a Brazil jersey, which I still own. It cost £50 at the time. Adjusted for inflation, that would be equivalent to almost €115 in December 2025, around €10 more than what Castore are charging today.

Those interested in reading more about the economics of football jerseys might enjoy our paper in the Journal of Instiutional Economics - free to read here.

By David Butler

​There was bad news recently for researchers interested in football (soccer) data. FBref.com announced that, as of January 20, its data agreement with Stats Perform would be terminated. Further details were reported in the New York Times. This development represents a significant setback for the analytics, Sports Econ and Sports Management community interested in football, particularly for those working on the women’s game. The platform represented an unprecedented free resource for researchers that has now lost it’s teeth.

Over the past seven years, FBref.com democratised access to advanced performance data. Lone scholars, students, and researchers without institutional budgets were able to access detailed performance metrics that would otherwise sit behind  very expensive paywalls (which media companies often pay for). For women’s football in particular, the past two years marked a step change in data availability and research potential. That progress has now been interrupted.

Historically, FBref’s advanced statistics were first powered by StatsBomb and Data Sports Group (DSG). Within the analytics community, StatsBomb’s expected goals (xG) and expected assists (xA) models were often regarded as higher quality than those produced by Stats Perform (Opta), largely due to method. Under the StatsBomb/DSG agreement, FBref provided unusually granular data, including information on pressing actions and their locations, passing by body part and height, carry distances, carries into the final third, and even nutmegs!

When FBref later switched from StatsBomb/DSG to Stats Perform (Opta), many of these variables disappeared. Data quality was traded off with quantity, and coverage expanded in other dimensions: more leagues were included, xG data became more widely available, and, most notably, women’s football data increased substantially.

Perhaps more worryingly, the recent FBref announcement is not an isolated case. Earlier this season, at the start of the 2025/26 campaign, FotMob briefly published physical performance metrics such as sprint counts and distances covered by players. These features were switfly removed. Together, these episodes may suggest a broader tightening of control over performance data distributed through online/public platforms.

Why is this happending? One possible explanation lies in the commercial value of this football data, particularly in gambling markets. Betting firms have historically played a significant role in funding data collection and dissemination, sometimes enabling free availability. Perhaps their incentives may be shifting toward restriction rather than openness. This interpretation is of course speculative.

For researchers the implications are concerning. The erosion of freely accessible data is a step backwards.  Women’s football, which has only recently begun to benefit from improved data coverage, may be especially vulnerable. The “good times” of open access football analytics are not fully over as ‘basic statistics’ are still freely available in lots of places, and advanced stats on xG and xA are available elsewhere, but the free data movement is clearly under pressure.

By Robbie Butler

With the 2026 League of Ireland season due to begin next month, I thought it timely to compare season ticket prices across Premier Division and First Division clubs. The data covers 19 clubs in total, comprising 10 Premier Division sides and 9 First Division sides. Data for UCD FC was not available. All prices referenced relate to standard adult season tickets only, with no concessions, discounts, or age-based reductions applied.

Across both divisions, adult season ticket prices range from €145 to €325. Athlone Town over the cheapest season ticket, while Dundalk are the most expensive. 

In the top tier, season ticket prices range from a minimum of €256 to a maximum of €325 (Dundalk), a range of €69. The mean Premier Division adult price is approximately €292, while the median stands at €300. Several clubs are priced at this median level, including Derry City, Drogheda United and Sligo Rovers. Aside from Dundalk, only Waterford and Shelbourne exceed €300. 

The First Division shows a broader spread in adult season ticket prices, ranging from a low of €145 (Athlone Town) to a high of €270 (Kerry),. The mean First Division adult price is approximately €213, while the median is €210. Several clubs cluster around the €200 level, including Bray Wanderers, Cobh Ramblers and Wexford. Other First Division adult prices sit above the median, such as €224 at Treaty United, €230 at Finn Harps and €240 at Cork City, contributing to the division’s wider variability.

Comparing the two divisions highlights both a higher overall adult price level and lower variation in the Premier Division. On average, Premier Division adult season tickets are priced around €79 higher than those in the First Division, while the median difference is €90. 

By Robbie Butler

Wishing all our readers a very happy, peaceful Christmas and best wishes for 2026. The picture above was taken last Tuesday (16th of December) on the University College Cork Quad.

2025 proved to be one of our most productive years to date. Eight papers were accepted or published during the year across football, GAA, grehound racing and boxing. The full list is below for those that wish to read further. 

1. An Exploration of English Premier League YouTube Highlights Consumption: Unexpected Outcomes & Schadenfreude. (2026) European Sport Management Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2025.2578530.
2. Butler, D., Butler, R. and Singleton, C. (2026). Objective Calls under the Spotlight: Referee Consistency and Behaviour on Football’s Biggest Stage. Journal of Sports Economics. https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025251396508.
3. Butler, R., Butler, D. and Gaine, B. (2026). Folk Beliefs and Fast Thinking: An Empirical Test of the Coffin Trap in Greyhound Racing. Review of Behavioral Economics.
4. Butler, R. (2025). An Introduction to the James Quirk Special Issue and the Economics of Combat Sport. Journal of Sports Economics 26(2), 135-138. https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025221112843.
5. Butler, D., Butler R., and Maxcy, J. and Woodworth, S.  (2025). Outcome Uncertainty and Viewer Demand for Basic Cable Boxing. Journal of Sports Economics 26(2), 196-213. https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025231156052.
6. Eakins, J., Considine, J., Collins, N., Horgan, P., & Weir, C. (2025). Sequential Decisions and Compensatory Tendencies: Evidence from Camogie. The Economic and Social Review, 56(3, Autumn), 341-361.
7. Butler, D., & Butler, R. (2025). The Baby Club: Paternity and Performance in a High‐Pressure Setting. Kyklos, 78(2), 510-524. https://doi.org/10.1111/kykl.12429.
8. McCarthy, C., Bradfield, T., Butler, D., & Butler, R. (2025). Emissions from air travel and major football tournaments. European Sport Management Quarterly, 25(4), 663-683. https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2024.2416891.

The blog will return on the 28th of January 2026 for it's 14th year. 

By John Considine

My guess is that most economists would have heard of Kenneth Arrow and have some idea of the work for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics.  For example, he is known for showing the difficulty combining individual attributes into a common measure (apologies for the generality).  My guess is that fewer would know that Arrow was influenced by a paper by a Harvard mathematician with a keen interest in cross-country running.  Gordon Tullock has documented how Arrow acknowledges the influence of E.V. Huntington's 1938 paper "A Paradox in the Scoring of Competing Teams".

Today, while looking for an excuse to take a break from grading students' work, I read this very short paper again.  It is two pages in length.  Huntington opens the paper with a brief discussion of scoring teams of students and cross-country runners.  Because individual times were not usually available, the scoring of the running teams has to be done by the rank method.  By contrast, the student marks can be aggregated directly.  Huntington then presents six cases where teams, comprising of three students per team, are scored using the aggregation of their marks and the ranking method.  In all six cases, Team A scores 268, Team B scores 267, and Team C scores 266.  However, the rank method give six different rankings: ABC; ACB; BAC; BCA; CAB; CBA.

There is a touch of understated class about the following two lines from Huntington.  "In many practical cases it will make no difference which method is used.  Nevertheless, the question has a certain theoretical interest which seems to be worth discussing."

By John Considine

In these couple of seconds from yesterday's game between Brentford and Leeds United both managers raise their hands into the air.  If they were not taking part in a Mexican Wave then what prompted a similar reaction from the opposing managers.  Were they reacting to the same event in the same way?  Or, maybe, one manager was reacting to a challenge by a player from the opposing team and the other manager was reacting to the decision of the referee to award a free.  We don't know but we are more likely to think it is the second explanation because we start with the belief that they are unlikely to agree.

A seminal paper in the area is over 70 years old.  It is called "They Saw A Game". The game was a robust 1951 football game between Dartmouth and Princeton.  When the authors solicited the views of the respective student supporters, they discovered that the students saw the game differently.  My guess is that a survey of supporters of Brentford and Leeds United would also disagree on a share of referee decisions from yesterday.  Therefore, I would question the research that measures referee-error using fan websites.

By John Considine

Over the last 24 hours an amount of Irish media outlets reported the comments of swimmer Daniel Wiffen about the Enhanced Games, e.g. "For me, it's not swimming".  My guess is that "swimming" for Wiffen is more than specific movements of a body in liquid.  I would guess that he means that it is more than having a level playing field (a poor image for a water sport) because there is the opportunity for all swimmers in the Enhanced Games to be on the same substance.  Maybe we need to clearly define what we are seeking to discover when we run a competition (borrowing from a title of a famous Hayek article).  Is it is how fast a human body can "naturally" cover a distance in water?  But this begs the question as to what we mean by "natural". 

We should keep an open mind and repeatedly ask what are we measuring.  We might think we are measuring X when it might turn out we are measuring Z.  In his experiments, Walter Michel started out trying to establish what strategies kids used to combat the pull of instant gratification.  Offered a choice between one oreo (marshmallow) immediately or two when the experimenter returned, Michel observed the kids.  Years later, Michel decided to see how his subjects were getting along with their lives.  He discovered that those who were better at combatting the pull of instant gratification did better academically and in their careers.  After the passage of another period of time, Michel returned again to the issue.  Was there a potential cause outside the individuals themselves?  He found that the kids who did better where those with wealthier parents.  It can be difficult to devise a competition that measures exactly what one wishes to measure.  How many poor kids don't get the opportunity to compete in various sports because of their poverty?

Tonight Newcastle United play in the UEFA Champions League.  Some of their fans are not too pleased about the limits on "financial doping" due to rules such as the UK's version of Financial Fair Play.  There is probably a grain of truth in the view that these rules are designed to keep poorer clubs from transforming themselves with the help of a "sugar daddy".  The club picked a wealthy parent but are constrained in their use the owner's wealth.

In "Competition as a Discovery Procedure", Hayek mentioned sporting and academic competitions.  Many of the "governing bodies" for academic competitions are worried about "unnatural" influences, i.e. the use of artificial intelligence.  Academic doping.  Enhanced intelligence.  Objectors raise issues not dissimilar to financial doping or chemical doping in sport.  But where does one draw the line.  Students from wealthier backgrounds can afford private tuition ("grinds") or go to better institutions.  Maybe AI levels the playing field.  It brings us back to the question "what are we trying to measure when we are using a competition as a discovery procedure?"