By John Considine

Arsenal are on the verge of their first title since 2004.  The achievement is not exactly a Leicester City but it is surely a good news story for the game. However, there are some grumblings that they rely too much on set-pieces for their goals.  On Sunday, two hurling teams shared 53 scores totalling to 61 points.  At halftime the analysts waxed lyrical about the fact that so many of the scores came from play.  It speaks to a frequent complaint that hurling is turning into a free-taking competition.  Approximately 20% of the scores between Limerick and Waterford on Sunday came from free-shots.  Thirty percent (30%) is the current average for such games.

Last year, Tipperary won the All-Ireland title after playing seven games.  Over those seven games they averaged 30% from frees.  Thirty-five years earlier I was on a team that took five games to win the 1990 title.  We got 8% of our scores from frees.  While most would prefer a smaller proportion of scores to come from frees, most would also agree that the game in 2026 is in a better place.

By Robbie Butler

In recent days, there has been speculation that Crystal Palace could financially benefit from a final day loss away to Arsenal. The source of this was based on the suggested nature of Eberechi Eze's contract, having joined the Gunners in August 2025 for an initial fee of £60 million. It is believed that £7.5 million in potential add-ons was included as part of a four-year deal with his new club.

Crucially, it is now believed that these add-ons do not include additional income for Crystal Palace if Eze's current club Arsenal win the league. Why? Because Arsenal's final league game of the season is away to Crystal Palace. Such a scenario, even if ignored and not acting as any perverse incentive to perform, would not be a good look for the game.

This begs the question of whether such add-ons should be permitted at all. One can reasonably assume that individual performance metrics, such as goals scored, number of assists, and so on, are reasonable to include. The chances of unintended consequences, while possible, remain limited, as these metrics are player-related only.

The introduction of team performance metrics into the contract of an individual player is a different matter. A player does not, in theory, have to play for team performance bonuses to be met. If a player signs for a new club and the buying club agrees to pay the selling club an additional sum should they win a trophy or qualify for European competition, these targets may be achieved entirely independent of the contribution of the player signed.

Such scenarios could give rise to a range of perverse incentives that alter the pay-offs from winning, or indeed losing, a game. It should never be the case that losing is more financially rewarding than winning.

By David Butler

A few weeks back Mikey Moore was named SPL young player of the year. His loan from Tottenham ought to be deemed successful. But is he an excpetion? In a new working paper with collegues in Ireland and the UK, we consider how the loan process affects later career pay of footballers. 

Loan moves are a staple of football for a long time now. Of course, the motivation for them and the loan/contract strcuture vary in type. For example, young players heading out to lower tiers to get first-team minutes or established players moving to new clubs on a trial basis. At times we see big-money flops being farmed out to revive their career. On the surface, it looks like a sensible arrangement for everyone involved, but our research suggests that for players, their may be an inter temprial cost of going on loan.

We use data for over 1,000 players in the English Premier League and Serie A between 2021 and 2025, and find that loan moves are consistently associated with lower wages. There is no evidence anywhere in the data that loans generate a later wage premium. Every type of loan, in both leagues, is either associated with a penalty or makes no difference at all.

We try to get at the idea of differnt loan motivations and find that not all loans are equal. The largest wage penalties attach to straight developmental loans, which see's young (u-21) players sent out with no purchase clause attached. Loans with a purchase clause attached to them, where the receiving club has an option to make the move permanent, carry smaller penalties. What about loans with an obligation to buy? Here we find no significant pay penalty at all.  This makes sense, as these arrangements are effectively staged transfers, and the wage already reflects where the player is going rather than where they came from.

Perhaps the most intersting finding in the research is the persistent effect of prior loan spells.  We find that for every additional loan a player has taken in their career, their wage is approximately 4% lower.  The labour market appears to be reading into a history of repeated loaning. When a player keeps getting moved on temporarily rather than integrated or sold permanently, its seems the market takes note.

The findings do differ across leagues. In the EPL, loans of any kind carry a significant wage penalty. Italy tells a different story entirely. In Serie A, only developmental straight loans attract a pay penalty. Every other loan type is statistically indistinguishable from non-loan wages. We think this is consistent with Italy's long-established 'loan culture'  where temporary moves of experienced players are routine.

By John Considine

As sports fans we often resemble the Jim Carrey character in Dumb and Dumber.  We can translate the smallest of probabilities into exaggerated hope.  Broadcasters play on it by producing some statistic that shows how the competitor that is ahead is prone to giving up a lead (or that the competitor that is behind is one of the better competitors at turning things around).  There's a chance.  An education in economics can innoculate a person but at a cost.  It can make hope seem dim and dimmer.

I was reminded of this at the weekend by two economists.  On Saturday, Ipswich were two goals up on QPR at halftime.  A victory would ensure automatic promotion to the Premier League.  At that point in time, I reminded an Ipswich fan, and economist, that Cork were 2 goals (or 6 points) ahead at halftime during the 2025 All-Ireland hurling final.  Cork would end up losing that game.  I suggested Ipswich might also lose.  His reply read, "No chance".  Ipswich won.

At halftime in the 2025 All-Ireland hurling final, one might have been inclined to think that Cork would win.  No team during the 2025 hurling championship had come from 6 points behind to win a game - until Tipperary did it to beat Cork in the final.  This is illustrated below where the thick red line is the All-Ireland final.  Tipperary had a chance (and a good chance given that they unlucky to be 2 goals behind).  The size of the turnaround was unusual.

Hurling-commentators frequently suggest that a large lead is easily overturned in hurling.  An economist I know can be "triggered" by such suggestions.  The data supports the economist.  But it can happen.  And, with better odds than made Jim Carrey happy.

By Chloe Lee

​The current state of Formula 1 reflects a landscape that is no longer suiting the drivers, constructors, or the viewers.  Despite the idea that regulations set forward by the FiA, the governing board of F1, should be encouraging more exciting, innovative, and safer racing from year to year, many viewers and drivers feel the sport has become more unwatchable, harder to drive, and overall more unsafe. Cars are now too fast, wide, heavy, or long for proclaimed historic, iconic, or otherwise praised tracks, and many within the FiA refuse to change the schedules in the name of tradition or iconography, even as regulations shift towards innovation.

This leads to the following question: Are rules now making the F1 boring to watch?

Defined more thoroughly, how, if at all, have the developments in F1 car aerodynamics and overall make since 2006 contributed to a both functional and experiential disconnect between modern cars and historic circuits, and has this dynamic influenced both the disuse of certain track layouts or the decline of interest on others?

Upon approaching this question, and as a dedicated fan of the sport, it felt easy to answer immediately; yes, the sport is surely becoming more disconnected from what it used to be. Yet, after a thorough Causal-Comparative Analysis, working to evaluate track fit from both viewer and driver, the findings presented are anterior to this initial hypothesis. 

​​By analyzing average overtakes per race, overtakes growth rate, race betting odds, viewership numbers, # of red and yellow flag per year, comparative qualifying times, and significant regulatory changes, including changes in aerodynamics (ground-effect and the Drag Reduction System (DRS)), car and engine make, the study assesses whether these regulations have positively influenced the sport through the lens of the selected F1 tracks. Tracks in which overall track scores improved  over the course of 20 years, showing positive influence, are Hungaroring, Imola, Nurburgring, Monza, Silverstone, and China (see figure below). Tracks in which overall scores did not improve over the course of 20 years, showing negative influence, are Monaco and Spa.

Analyzing the findings in the context of that initial question, the developments in Formula 1 car aerodynamic and overall make since 2006 has generally not contributed to a function nor an experiential disconnect between modern cars and historic circuits, with moderate exceptions. This dynamic has influenced track calendars and track interest notably through the displayed moderate exceptions seen in Spa and Monaco.

​In recent years, Spa is now an “alternating” track, where it alternates yearly with another circuit, showing the “disuse,” while Monaco is often dreaded due to low overtakes and slow lap-times. It can also be noted that, while not shown in the findings, track calendars and track interest have been influenced by tracks of the likes Nurburgring and Imola, as they have been removed from season calendars as a result of perceived danger or loss of spectacle, despite fan engagement at these track formats.

Chloe Lee is a a senior student in high school, Arizona, USA.

By Daragh O'Leary

One of the biggest challenges economists and other researchers face when conducting research is trying to measure theoretical concepts. Economists must come up with ways of measuring things which don’t have a natural numerical value. Innovation is a good example of this. Innovation is a well-researched topic in economics, but there is no natural way to measure innovation, so economists come up with ways to proxy it.

For example, they may survey businesses and ask them whether they have introduced a new product in the last year or not. They then use these responses to create a binary variable which is coded as 1 if the firm introduced a new product and 0 if not. This measure allows the economist to operationalise a certain kind of innovation where new products are introduced, but unfortunately, the same variable doesn’t permit the measurement of other facets of innovation where no new product is introduced e.g., improvements to production processes. Furthermore, the binary measure also makes no distinction between radical and incremental innovations which may differ significantly in terms of their impact.

Sports economists often encounter this same issue. A recent analysis on Monday Night Football by Jamie Carragher got me thinking about this. Carragher was analysing an Arsenal set piece routine which resulted in a goal against Newcastle. Usually when fans talk about goals being scored from corners, they generally mean goals which involved an uncontested cross coming into the box where players ambush the space around the keeper and defenders which allows them to head the ball into the net. Obviously, this is not the most exciting type of goal to watch, but as Carragher points out in his analysis, the goal Arsenal scored from this corner wasn’t like most other goals scored from corners. 

The corner routine involved Noni Madueke passing the ball to Kai Havertz who was in Newcastle’s penalty box. Havertz then takes two touches and passes the ball to his left to find Eberechi Eze waiting outside the penalty box. Eze then strikes the ball into the top left corner of the goal putting the Gunners ahead. I assume most fans would agree, that Eze’s goal is far better to watch than most of the goals Arsenal score from corners. Such was the discrepancy in style between this goal and most other goals scored from corners, it made me question whether or not it should even count as a goal scored from a corner.  

If one was to try and come up with a way of measuring how many goals a team scores from corners, they would first have to come up with a binary definition which allowed them to indicate not only when a goal was scored from a corner, but also when a goal has not been scored form a corner. This may seem easy, but it is quite challenging in practice.

Should the definition be: any goal which is assisted by the corner taker? If so, Eze’s goal wouldn’t count.

Should the definition be: any goal which is scored from a cross played in by a corner taker? Again, this means Eze’s goal wouldn’t count.

Perhaps the definition could be: any goal which is scored after a corner is taken, but before the ball goes out of play. This would mean that Eze’s goal qualifies, but many would argue that this definition would result in a series of false positives.

Let’s say that the ball gets crossed into the box from a corner and the keeper punches it clear. Then the ball is recovered by an attacking player who passes back to their keeper, who subsequently launches the ball up to one of their wingers, who then makes their way into the box and lays the ball off to their teammate who scores.

At some point in the above situation the phase of play occurring ceases being a corner routine and resumes being open play. Accordingly, most spectators would accept that the goal which was described above was not scored from a corner. However, our definition would measure this as a 1, so our subsequent analysis would consider it a goal scored form a corner the same way it would a direct header resulting from a cross.

​Properly defining when goals have and haven’t been scored from set pieces is an important task for football analysts moving forward. Set pieces seem to be playing an increasingly important role in football now. To learn from them, when must be able to measure them.

By John Considine

A few weeks ago I posted a picture designed to illustrate the excitment in the 2025 Senior Hurling Championship.  The Munster Hurling Final between Limerick and Cork stood out as the most exciting game of 2025.  However, there was a caveat.  The games in the picture were only those games shown on the national broadcaster (RTE).  By virtue of being broadcast on RTE these games attracted the largest audiences and were, therefore, likely to be remembered as the most exciting by most people.  In that post I noted that the most exciting game of the 2025 season, according to the measures that I was using, was not listed.  That game was between Dublin and Offaly.  On Saturday, the 2026 version of the game was broadcast on GAA+.  Below are some measures of the outcome uncertainty and excitment in that contest.

There were 56 scores in the game.  It ended level on a scoreline of 4-22 to 2-28.  The last score of the game came just under a minute from the end of a game that lasted close to 75 minutes.  If one were to look at the scoreboard after each of the 56 scores then the most common margin between the teams was a 2 point lead for Dublin as illustrated below by the largest blue bar.  The teams were level on 9 occassions.  Offaly never led by more than 2 points and Dublin never led by more than 4 points.

One can understand why those who watched the game felt it was a good game.  Plenty of scores.  The game within one score (or three points) for the vast majority of the time.  The outcome determined 1% of the time from the end of the game.  I'm not so sure about the views of a man from Offaly that I met the following day.  He suggested Offaly should have won.  A knowledgable hurling man but I'm not sure the above picture would support his views.  That said, those green and gold bars came from the closing stages of the second half.  He could be correct.

By Robbie Butler

Our recently accepted paper in the Journal of Sports Economics - ​Objective Calls under the Spotlight: Referee Consistency and Behaviour on Football’s Biggest Stage - was picked up by The Conversation. 

Last week, the website published a peice that we co-authored called "Football is being spoiled by time‑wasting – what can be done ahead of the World Cup?". 

The articel provides a brief overview of the main findings and possiblw solutions to the probaby in football. The full peice can be found here.

By John Considine

Ian Graham’s How to Win the Premier League is a fine book for the way it outlines the difficulties with data and its analysis.  The subtitle of the book is “The inside story of football’s data revolution”.  I found the story of the evolution, rather than the revolution, more interesting.  It is neatly illustrated by a section called “The Ridgewell Problem”.
 
One of Graham’s earlier models rated Liam Ridgewell as one of the best defenders in Europe.  Yet, Ridgewell was on a Premier League team that ranked 19 of 20 when it came to expected goals conceded.  Graham says that “In common with other team sports, football has found it most difficult to measure and analyse defensive ability.  The problem we had was that we were unsure of the defenders’ positions when tackles didn’t happen and a dangerous chance was conceded.”  The italics are Graham’s.  How do you measure something that didn’t happen?  Let us park this for the moment.
 
Economists encounter something similar.  It is called the broken window fallacy.  Our gut instinct tells us that when a kid kicks a ball through a window it is a bad outcome.  However, if the kid employs a consultancy firm then the consultants will explain how the kid is serving the economy and should get preferential fiscal treatment.  They will explain that the expenditure of money on the replacement glass, and the person who installs it, are only the first round of a chain that will boost national income.  They will explain how the glass-shop owner and the window installer will spend the money they got and this will generate income for others.  There will be a multiple of the original expenditure circulating.  These consultants are like the data analysts that are measuring what happened rather than what did not happen.  We see the tackles just like we see the expenditure of the window owner on a replacement piece of glass.  We do not see what he would have spent the money on otherwise.  We do not see a goal if it was prevented.
 
I was reminded of this last Sunday by an excellent piece of defending in hurling.  It can be viewed here from 11:50 to 11:30 on the footage.  One of the best, if not the best, attackers in the game collected the ball in his hand.  This meant that one of the attacker’s two permitted catches was taken.  The attacker turned left towards goal and considered shooting but the defender was close enough to block any potential shot.  Therefore, the attacker elected to put the ball on his hurley and run towards goal.  The defender had positioned himself so that the attacker took the outside, and longer, route to goal.  There were two further benefits for the defender.  The attacker would be forced to strike off his relatively weaker side and from a narrower angle.
 
As they raced towards goal, the attacker tried to open up the angle a little. This required greater ball security so the attacker used his final permitted catch as he turned in.  This reduced the attacker’s advantage as he could only cover four steps with the ball in hand.  Realising he could not open the angle, the attacker tossed the ball back onto his stick and attempted to push away the defender.  But the defender had left enough of a gap that the handoff was only partly successful.  In addition, the defender had used the narrowing of the space to push the attacked the other direction.  The defender also clipped the attacker with his hurley in the way that a jockey twists his whip towards a horse’s neck to remind him of his presence.  He was unlikely to incur the wrath of the officials for excess use of the hurley.  At this stage, the attacker still had the ball but he had only one hand on the hurley that he was holding short to ensure ball control.  He could no longer catch the ball.  As a result, he tossed the ball upwards and struck it one-handed from a narrow angle and off his relatively weaker side.  The ball was struck off target (although the goalkeeper made sure at the cost of a 65m free shot).  Why did Aaron Gillane not score?  Maybe Sean O'Donoghue had something to do with it.
 
At 12:27 the commentator says, “Brilliant, from goalkeeper and forward”.  Even excellent defending that is seen is not often appreciated.  We might be a while away from being able to put the previous two paragraphs into data usable by statistical models.  Long live the Evolution.

By Robbie Butler

World Players Institute 2026 "Where Research Takes the Field: Informing decision making, bargaining, and practice in sport".

On 27-28 October 2026, the World Players Institute (WPI) will host its inaugural conference (WPI 2026) in partnership with Trinity College Dublin (TCD).

As sport continues to grow—with longer seasons, ever-increasing revenues, expanding global reach— athletes remain underrepresented in decision-making processes. This power imbalance is most effectively addressed through collective bargaining, which depends on reliable data and rigorous research to strengthen athlete voice and ensure equitable outcomes.

While significant research on such key areas as economics, labour rights, and health and safety in sport already exists, WPI 2026 provides a unique platform for this evidence to create real impact. By fostering relationships between academia and player associations, this conference bridges the gap between theory and practice through co-created research and projects that directly support athlete welfare.

Abstracts submission deadline: 31 May 2026. For more details, visit https://event.fourwaves.com/wpi2026.​