By David Butler

Arsenal are again pushing to win the Premier League. One of the most interesting elements of their campaign has been their effectiveness from set pieces. According to data reported by the BBC (up until recently anyway), 215 goals have been scored from non-penalty set pieces so far this season, roughly 27.5% of all goals. This reflects a broader league-wide trend, but Arsenal have become particularly associated with this tactic.

A key figure behind this is Nicolas Jover, Arsenal’s highly regarded set-piece coach. Reports suggest that Jover’s contract includes a performance-based financial bonus tied to goals scored from set pieces. If accurate, it represents a nice example of how monetary incentives can be embedded into coaching structures. Ultimately this could, in principle, affect outcomes on the pitch.

This idea is not unique. The Brentford squad has previously been reported to have financial rewards for goals scored from set plays, again an effort by the club to connect tactics to direct economic incentives.

At the opposite end of the table, the conversation around incentives takes on a different tone. In North London, uncertainty remains over whether Spurs players have wage reduction clauses tied to relegation in their contracts. Some reports suggest these clauses exist. Other reports dispute it.

The broad question is interesting - how do financial incentives influence performance under pressure? If relegation becomes a realistic threat, would survival bonuses sharpen focus and effort? Could players be offered financial rewards for securing Premier League safety? And if that were the case, might Igor Tudor also stand to benefit from a windfall should Spurs stave off relegation? I would hazard to guess his agent necessitated a ‘survival bonus’ in his contract.

Maybe, over time, we will get more data on these incentives to study how successful they are.

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.