By John Considine

Monday is the day that Sky Sports devotes a significant amount of airtime to the implementation of the rules of football.  The introduction of VAR doubled the fun they can have with a decision.  Before VAR there was only the on-field decision to talk about.  Now they can also discuss the decision of the off-field official.  Yesterday, the late Manchester City winner against Wolves got the treatment.
 
The previous Monday, there was no Premier League to ponder.  However, there was a related matter of the Nobel winners in Economics.  The awarding committee announced that “this year’s laureates in the economic sciences – Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson – have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity”.  It is related because it reminded me of a wonderful line from a book called Sustaining the Commons that says, “Sports are to the study of institutions as fruit flies are to the study of evolutionary biology”.  The book is dedicated to another institutional economist, and first female laureate in economics, Elinor Ostrom.
 
The Journal of Institutional Economics marked the 2024 Nobel award with a call for papers examining the work of a range of institutional economists.  On that list is James M. Buchanan.  I wonder what Buchanan would have made of the evolution of the offside rule in football.  In the not too distant past the rule was such that Manchester City’s Bernardo Silva would have been ruled offside purely based on his positioning relative to the ball and other players.  Then the rule was changed to distinguish between players in just such situations – those deemed not to be interfering with the play were subsequently deemed not to be offside.  The rule has further evolved.  Sky Sports put some of the text on screen for the purpose of their discussion.  It is reproduced in the picture below.

My guess is that Buchanan would have been slower than most to endorse the evolution of the offside rule.  My guess is based on the fact that he frequently highlighted the benefit of a formal rule-based approach.  He was not against an “all things considered” approach but he felt that the benefits of the former approach were under appreciated.  It is why he co-authored The Reason of Rules.  The title being a play on the “rule of reason” approach in competition law that is at the other end of the spectrum to the per se formal rule.  Buchanan argued that there are good reasons for having rules.

James Buchanan might have used a line attributed to Liverpool's legendary manager, Bill Shankley.  If the player is not interfering with the game then what are they doing on the field.

By Robbie Butler

This weekend plays host to the Cork Senior Hurling Club Championship finals. The "Premier" Final is a repeat of last year's semi final between Sarfields (Glanmire) and divisional team Imokilly. During sports economcis class this week, I spoke to the group, many of whom are visiting students to UCC, about the sport and attendance demand. The game is a great opportunity to explore this in real life.

Exploring the demand for attendance, is at the very heart of the field. Afterall, Rottenberg (1956) said "Attendance at baseball games, as a whole is a function of the general level of income, the price of admission to baseball games relative to the prices of recreational substitutes, and the goodness of substitutes…it] is a positive function of the size of the population of the territory in which the team has the monopoly right to play; the size and convenience of location of the ball park; and the average rank standing”. 

It is likely attendance will fall well below the stadium capaity of 45,000. "The size of the population" of both teams competing can explain much of that. While other factors do have a role to play, the level of demand for club hurling appears to be very much a 'local' effect, and people generally attend if their club is in the final. 

The final is also a repeat of the 1997 final where Imokilly claimed their first senior hurling club title. Many of the players on the day would go on to represent Cork during a very sucessful era, which resulted in a surge in attendance demand for the county team. Also pictured in the 1997 Final below is a regular contributor to this website and blog. 

​​A man of many talents.

The local newspaper The Echo has a very nice article of that day which can be read here.

By Lee Ann Burke 
 
The Dublin Marathon is just a few short weeks away meaning that the bulk of training has already taken place, and the taper run is on the cards for the weekend.  But while it might be too late to join a running club this year, it’s never too early to start planning for future marathons. If you’re considering a marathon in 2025 or beyond, joining a running club could be a game-changer.
 
Research on over 206,000 London Marathon finishers shows that club members tend to run faster. This improvement is perhaps thanks to structured training schedules, the camaraderie of group runs, and the motivation to keep pace with fellow runners. Whether you’re a seasoned marathoner or a first timer, exploring the benefits of a running club could significantly boost your performance by up to 40 minutes. Not only that but joining a club can help negate the age effect too meaning that PBs can still be achieved well into a runner’s career.
 
Read more on RTE Brainstorm or the full article to discover how a running club can help you achieve your marathon goals.

By Robbie Butler

I have just finished reading ""How To Win The Premier League" by Ian Graham. The author worked for Liverpool, as Director of Research, and built the first in-house analytics department in the Premier League between 2012 and 2023 when he announced his departure.

The book is superb and will be of interest to many readers of our website, as it mixes data, economics and football for 283 brilliant pages. I read the first 100 pages (part 1) in less than 24 hours, and while the remainder of the book took me a little longer, the early chapters are a master class.

It does help that I have an attachment to the club most spoken about in the book and also grew up in the 1980s where many of the earlier references and stories come from. The book goes onto describe how, Liverpool, used data from 2012 onwards to outmanoeuvre some bigger spending clubs. Reference is also made to Brighton and Brentford for their pioneering efforts at a lower level. 

There are great football stories mixed in too. Some that are widely known and others that are not. The early failure of the Liverpool approach (under Brendan Rogers) is compared to the successes under Jurgen Klopp and the development of the analytics model is described in great detail. The data revolution was aided by the huge leap forward in technology and broadcasting capacity that made many of the player tracking measures possible.

A thoroughly enjoyable read and one I can strong recommend. 

By Robbie Butler

The court of justice of the European Union (CJEU) has justed ruled in favour of former French international Lassana Diarra in his case against FIFA's transfer rules. 

Diarra, who played in the English Premier League previously for Chelsea, Arsenal and Portsmouth, as well as Real Madrid, took a case against FIFA when he was denied an international transfer certificate back in 2015 following a dispute with his then employers Lokomotiv Moscow.

The club has taken the player to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), for breach of contract, and Diarra was ordered to pay a €10 million fine (similar to his transfer fee) as well as €110,000 to the CAS. Diarra had sought a move to Belgian club Royal Charleroi but was permitted to move by FIFA.

The win for Diarra today means that the current rules effectively impede the free movement labour, a cornerstone of the European Single Market. The court went onto say that the rules “do not appear to be indispensable or necessary”.

What does this potentially mean? In theory, if applied, a player could potentially walk away from a contract mid-season, without compensation for the club holding the contract. What an impact that would have on the game. Not just for the clubs but the players themselves. 

What happens next is anyone's guess. But there is a bit of a "Bosman" feeling on this. And how serendipitous is this, Diarra was prevented moving to the city of Charleroi - to Royal Charleroi S.C. The last two professional games of Marc Bosman's career were played for R. Olympic Charleroi. What an impact the Belgian city has had on football.

By David Butler

Mr McMahon is Netflix’s latest big hit. As a child of the 90’s I grew up with the growth of the WWF, so the documentary was an entertaining watch for the nostalgia. 

I guess professional wrestling is a quasi-sporting setting . Yes, it is scripted - the outcome uncertainty or doses of suspense and surprise are pre-determined – so it is an “entertainment product”. That said, the sophisticated technical ability, athleticism and risks taken by the performers are traits shared in sports where outcomes are not predetermined. Maybe it is just impure (or  acceptably rigged) sport. It is an open secret that the outcomes are rehearsed but most the wrestling within the bouts is impromptu . Perhaps darts, snooker and esports are just as impure – they (hopefully) have true outcome uncertainty - and are not rigged - but of course lack the athletic capacities needed for typical sports.

Maybe demand and the mass cultural appeal of the pro-wrestling lies in the ability to engineer the outcomes. Just like the soaps, the WWF stood the test of time. The products broadcast by the WWF/WWE are some of the longest running weekly episodic television shows in U.S. history. Scripted drama opens up far more opportunities to entertain.
​
One message from the documentary is that the heyday of the product was between the late 90’s and early 00’s.  The data below shows estimated PPV buys from 1993 to 2013 (the spikes are WrestleMania) – the growth in and about this time-period is clear and there has been a downward trend since. This is interesting as corporate consolidation took place in March 2001 when the WWE acquired its major competitor (WCW). The sentiment was that the best days ended upon effectively becoming a monopoly - the incentives to innovate changed. 

There's lots of economics that can be drawn from the documentary, particularly on competition and consumer demand...even if it is/is not a sport?