By Robbie Butler

Followers of the League of Ireland will be very familiar with the league's ups and downs over the past number of decades. Sadly, there have been more downs than ups, with the league undergoing constant change and restructuring. Myself and David discuss the evolution of this since 1970 here.

We are not the only economists researching the League of Ireland. Prof. Barry Reilly from the University of Sussex recently presented during the same session as I at the 2017 Irish Economic Association Conference. His paper considers the effect days of the week have on attendance in the League of Ireland.

Unlike most leagues where broadcasting rights are by far the most important source of match day revenue, the domestic league here is difference. Gate receipts remain very important and account for 1/3 of all revenue on match days. Reilly states that this places the league 3rd in Europe, behind only Switzerland and Scotland. 

Getting fans to games has been a problem and continues to be. Traditionally, match days in Ireland were Sunday. This changed in the early 1990s when Sky Sports started to broadcast live Premier League games on Sunday afternoons. League of Ireland clubs were compensated for this (mainly in the form of floodlights) and moved games to Friday and Saturday nights.

The introduction of Summer Soccer in 2003 has required the use of additional days of the week to accommodate cup matches and a two week summer break. Reilly finds the use of non-traditional days (such as Monday and Tuesday) has a significant, negative impact on attendance. The use of these days should be reconsidered by League organisers. The author suggests moving earlier rounds of the cup, where attendances are on average much lower than league games, as one possibly way to overcome fixture congestion. 

Interestingly, attendance at cup games soars from the quarter-finals onward. It is suggested that two-legged cup semi-finals be adopted to help boost club coffers. 

By Robbie Butler

On Sunday night Dundalk were crowned League of Ireland champions for the third successive year. This is the first time the Co. Louth club have won three titles in a row and the club joins a a very short list that have achieved this feat. Shamrock Rovers managed to win three-in-a row twice (during a four season stint as champions between the 1983-84 and 1986-87 seasons). Waterford won three titles in 1968, 1969 and 1970, while the defunct Cork United were the first triple-champions between the seasons 1940-41 and 1942-43. 

Dundalk' success is quite unusual for the League of Ireland, especially in recent years. The opening chapter of Stefan Szymanski's Money and Football: A Soccernomics Guide addresses the area of dominance and distress amongst clubs. The author notes that between the years 1963 and 2012 (50 seasons) the League of Ireland had a higher number of championship winners (15 clubs) than any other European league. The most successful club over this period (Shamrock Rovers) also had the lowest number of league wins (just 7) when compared to the most successful clubs in every other European League.

From this information we can conclude the League of Ireland is very well balanced and ultra-competitive, relative to other European league. But what might this mean?

Sports economics literature tells us that competition is essential for sport to survive. Linked to this is the uncertainty-of-outcome hypothesis. In order to sell sport to customers, the result cannot be know beforehand, otherwise why watch. The League in Ireland certainly displayed this characteristic over the past five decades, but did it really matter? The evidence would suggest no. Attendances are still very low, relative to other sports on this island and when compared to other football leagues across Europe. That said, Dundalk's dominance is dramatically reducing the level of competitive balance and undermining uncertainty of outcome. This might not be a bad thing.

I previously wrote about "The Rise and Decline of Champions" (in true Mancur Olson fashion). Dundalk need to avoid the cycle of Irish clubs over the past two decades, where league success has been followed by a period of decline, financial distress and in some cases relegation. Their continued dominance, if sustained, can only be a good thing for the League of Ireland generally. Repeated league wins will result in continued participation in the qualifying stages of the Champions League. Anecdotal evidence suggests experience and repeated opportunity result in a greater chance of success, and possibly an Irish club in the Group Stages of the UEFA Champions League. Dundalk have two years experience of Champions League football and are still in the Europa League. This can only help next season.

Success at this level raises the League of Ireland's UEFA league co-efficient. Dundalk are also Europe's 226th highest ranked club. That's ahead of Scotland's Hearts and Hibs, Utrecht, and Rapid Bucharest.

The Europa League continues again next week as Dundalk travel to Saint Petersburg to take on the mighty Zenit. They will be hoping to add to the €6.5 million they have already scooped in prize money. Ignoring the parachute payment and base fee they received to date, and assuming a normal points allocation for the qualifying round, this equated to €118,000 per point won in Europe. The league win this week was worth €110,000. €8,000 less or just under €1,500 per point. 

By David Butler

Soccer & Society, in conjunction with Routledge/Taylor & Francis Online, have published a variety of articles on soccer in Ireland. The special edition addresses economic, historic and social aspects of the soccer. A full list of the articles can be found here.

Robbie and I have made a contribution. Our article entitled Rule changes and incentives in the League of Ireland from 1970 to 2014 offers a broad analysis of the developments in the League of Ireland from the 1970’s onward. In particular it offers a descriptive account of the (many) changes to rules in the League, some of which were quite forward thinking at the time, such as the introduction as a 4-3-2-1 points system trialled in the early eighties. We also describe the evolution of the promotion/relegation system and the switch to Summer Soccer. In light of the changes, we analyse the number of goals scored from 1970-2014.

Changing the rules in the League, in an effort to have a more exciting sport, has made Irish football competitions particularly complex relative to their European counterparts. Despite the many attempts to improve our league through rule changes, the period has seen a general decline in the number of goals scored.

By Robbie Butler

Dundalk FC achieved yet another remarkable result for Irish soccer on Thursday night. The County Louth club recorded the first ever victory for a League of Ireland club in the Europa League, beating  Maccabi Tel Aviv 1 – 0 in Group D of the competition.
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The result is fantastic from a football perspective, and gives the club a realistic chance of qualifying for the knock-out stages in February 2017. The economic windfall is also enormous for a club playing domestic football in Ireland.

​To put this into perspective we can consider the prize funds on offer in both the League of Ireland and Europa League.

​In March 2016, League of Ireland sponsors SSE Airtircity announced a total prize fund, for both the Premier Division and First Division, of €475,500 for the current campaign. This was a 50% increase on the previous season. The breakdown of prize money is presented to the right.

Including the Irish Daily Mail FAI Cup, the EA SPORTS Cup and the Fair Play competition, the total prize fund available to League of Ireland clubs during 2016 is €596,500.

Dundalk’s European adventure to date has yielded the following financial return  from prize money alone (table below). 

The win last night earned the club €360,00. This is almost the same as the entire prize fund for the 2016 Premier Division.

With both Dundalk and Cork City likely to finish first and second in the League or Ireland this season, it will be very interesting to compare the €110,000 or €55,000 prize they receive with that of their European success.
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Should the financial return from European competition continue to rise, it will have interesting consequences for competition and competitive balance in the League of Ireland next season and the years ahead.

By Robbie Butler

The League of Ireland finds itself again in a strange place. On Thursday night, Dundalk FC arguably got the best result in the history of the league when they managed a 1-1 away to AZ Alkmaar in the Europa League. This resulted is framed against a League that has undergone constant change and crisis over the past number of decades.

Many of the problems in the League are due to the proximity of Britain to Ireland. For almost 100 years the best Irish talent has been exported to the Britain. Some of these players have acquired legend status at the biggest clubs. The flow of talent from Ireland increased rapidly towards the end of the twentieth century, and today, hundreds of Irish players earn a living in the various professional leagues in Britain.

Demand for the League of Ireland has been suitably reduced. The demand function for the product is no different to any other. The price, income, quality, preferences, the probability of a team’s success, etc. are all determinants of demand. If you export your best talent, demand will fall. 

The high point of interest in the League of Ireland is said to have occurred during the 1950 and early 1960s. Interest in the League has subsequently declined since. What caused this to happen? There are a number of reasons, but it’s no coincidence that at the same time the League started to see a drop in attendance figures, live football from England started to appear on Irish TV screens, with the FA Cup Final broadcast live on free-to-air television . European competitions also started to appear on our screens.

Live televised football increased in quantity during the 1970s and 1980s and in 1992 BskyB changed football as we know it. Sunday afternoon football was to become a permanent fixture. This gave the League of Ireland a big problem. Sunday afternoon had been the leagues traditional kick-off time.

Over the course of the next two decades, clubs in the league experimented with various different kick-off days and times. The majority of clubs migrated to Friday nights. This is probably driven by the actions of competitors. Until this season, the Premier League was screened from 12.45pm to 7.15pm on Saturday, from 2pm to 6pm on Sunday’s and Monday evenings. European competition was shown live on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night. Friday is all that was left.

But now another, potentially bigger problem, has emerged. Sky Sports have changed this again. There is now nowhere for League of Ireland clubs to realistically go to avoid direct competition. I fear this could spell the end for some. While many football fans probably love the arrival of live Friday night Premier League football, keep in mind there is an opportunity cost. It may be the very survival of the League of Ireland First Division.

By Robbie Butler

The 2016 SSE Airtricity League of Ireland Premier Division is seven games into the season and the league table has a familiar look already. Dundalk FC are top. Champions in 2014 and 2015, if Dundalk retain their crown they will become only the 4th club in the history of the League to win three consecutive titles, and follow in the footsteps of Shamrock Rovers (1984/85-1986/87), Waterford (1967/68-1969/70) and the now defunct Cork United (1940/41-1942/43).

Followers of the top European Leagues might think this is very much the norm. Bayern Munich look set to win their fourth consecutive league title next month. Juventus as closing in on a remarkable 5th Scudetto (Italian league title) in a row, matching Inter’s five-in-a-row from 2005/6-2009/10. Barcelona won three La Liga titles from 2008/9-2010/11. Celtic are set to make it five and counting since 2011/12.

The League of Ireland is somewhat different. The recently published Football and Money: A Soccernomics Guide presents data on dominance in twenty European leagues since the 1960s. The League of Ireland stands out for two main reasons:

1. Firstly, the most league champions wins by a club over the last 50 years stands at just 7 (Shamrock Rovers), the lowest on the list.
2. The league has the highest number of league championship winners over the last 50 years at 15 (Athlone Town, Bohemians, Cork Celtic, Cork City, Cork Hibernians, Derry City, Drogheda United, Drumcondra, Dundalk, Limerick United, Shamrock Rovers, Shelbourne, Sligo Rovers, St. Patrick's Athletic and Waterford).

​What also struck me about the league is a club that currently have the joint lowest number of points (4) in the Premier League this season; Sligo Rovers. The Bit o' Red were league champions just over three years ago. Relegation is a possibility this season and would not be the first time a champion of recent years were relegated. League of Ireland clubs seems follow a rise and decline pattern. A number of years building up to a league title, followed by a period of slow, or in some cases rapid, decline.
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The figures below present the league position of the eight most recent champions in the Leagues since the 1997/98 season.

From these illustrations it should be clear to see that Dundalk's current position is not as one might expect given the past twenty years. The Co. Louth based club appear to be bucking the trend to date. Most clubs go through a very similar pattern and in some cases two or more cycles can be identified.

For example, Bohemians appear to have gone through three cycles. Drogheda United are on the decline in a second cycle. This might also be said of both Shamrock Rovers and St Patrick's Athletic. Sligo Rovers fans must be worried. Their decline is in full swing and they could go the way of previous champions such as Cork City and Drodegha United to be relegated. 

Dundalk's recent dominance is bettered only by Shelbourne. The Dublin club weren't outside the top three between 1998 and 2006 and were crowned champions no less than six times during that period. Since then they have suffered two relegations and lie just one point off the bottom of the second tier of Irish football. 

By Farai Jena & Barry Reilly
 
In a recently published book (Money and Football: A Soccernomics Guide) Stefan Szymanski examines, inter alia, the concept of club dominance in European football leagues over the last 50 years. Szymanski reports, using data from 20 European leagues, that an average of only 10 different clubs have won their domestic league titles over this half century, ‘….way below what you would expect to see if there were balance in the league’. The League of Ireland, providing 15 different champions over this period, is identified by Szymanski as one where the number of different winners is considerably above the average.  This could be taken to suggest that it is one of the better balanced leagues in Europe.

There are a number of alternative methods available to determine a league’s long-run competitive balance. One such measure is known as the Herfindahl Index of Competitive Balance (HICB). In an extreme hypothetical case where all teams complete the season with the same number of points (i.e., a perfectly balanced league), the HICB value is one.  In contrast, the greater the inequity in the distribution of points across teams at the end of the season, the higher above unity is the HICB and the poorer is the league’s competitive balance.

In order to explore the issue of competitive balance for the League of Ireland we use the HICB to compare its degree of balance with a set of neighbouring leagues in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland over 16 recent seasons. The leagues are selected on the basis of arguably possessing comparable playing standards to the League of Ireland. 
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Figure 1 plots the HICB for the League of Ireland Premier Division, the average of tiers three to five in England, and the average of tiers two and three in Scotland. The averages are used here because little material difference in index values is detected across these leagues over the relevant seasons. In contrast to the leagues in England and Scotland, competitive balance is found to be markedly inferior in the League of Ireland. In addition, the league’s index also exhibits a greater degree of volatility over time particularly with respect to its English counterparts. 

Figure 2 plots the League of Ireland’s HICB with those for the top tiers in Wales and Northern Ireland. These two close neighbours register a fairly high degree of competitive imbalance in common with the League of Ireland, though the index for the latter is characterised by a greater degree of volatility compared to the former two. 

Further, and not reported here in detail, the top tier leagues described by Syzmanski as the most plutocratic (viz., England, Germany, Spain and Italy) all register lower average HICB values than the League of Ireland over these 16 seasons, though the most dominated league in Europe (i.e., Scotland’s top tier) averages slightly higher.    
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A reason why a league’s long-run competitive balance might actually matter is because of its potential relationship with attendance.  A poorly balanced league is likely to prove unattractive to spectators.  Figure 3 plots average attendance and the HICB values (both standardized) for the League of Ireland over these 16 seasons in order to discern any informative patterns. The plots reveal an inverse relationship between competitive imbalance and average attendance. The correlation coefficient is computed at –0.60 and is statistically significant at the 5% level using a t-test with 14 degrees of feedom. It should be emphasized that this finding is best interpreted as suggestive since nothing informing the causal relationship between these two variables can be inferred from this statistic.  However, competitive imbalance and attendance appear to move inversely in this league.

The domination of a league over time by a small number of teams may suggest long-run competitive imbalance but it does not imply that less dominated leagues by this defintion are competitively balanced.  The descriptive evidence reported here covering 16 recent seasons, and over which time seven different teams won the League of Ireland title (suggesting even weaker dominance than that reported by Syzmanski’s analysis), reveals the domestic league is competitively imbalanced when compared to either neighbouring lower tier leagues in England and Scotland or even Syzmanski’s set of plutocratic European leagues.  The very casual empirical evidence provided here also suggests that the lack of competitive balance within the League of Ireland might actually matter for attendance. 
 
Farai Jena is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Sussex.  Her research interests are in the area of applied microeconomics and include the economics of migration, migrant remittance behaviour, and the demand for football. 

Barry Reilly is Professor of Econometrics in the Department of Economics at the University of Sussex. His research interest include labour economics and the economics of sports.  He has published research on developing country labour markets and on racial discrimination in football.  

by Declan Jordan

The Economic and Social Review (Ireland's leading journal for economics and applied social science) publishes two sports economics articles in its latest issue. One of the articles is written by colleagues in UCC and this blog (the Butler Brothers). The other is an article by Barry Reilly of the University of Sussex on the demand for League of Ireland football, specifically Premier Division football.
 
This paper is particularly timely given current debates within the league and the Irish football community generally on the contents of the Conroy Report on the sustainability of the league. The paper is a very welcome contribution to the Irish sports economics literature. This is the first paper of which I am aware that conducts such a robust analysis of the determinants of demand for the league. This might primarily due to data limitations, with attendance figures for the league only recently being available more generally and being somewhat reliable. It is notable that the attendance data (sourced from extratime.ie) are, for some clubs, estimates from journalists and others in attendance rather than official club or league records.
 
The paper structures the determinants of demand around three groups of variables, expected match quality, outcome uncertainty and opportunity costs for supporters. The findings are consistent with studies for lower leagues in England and in general are unsurprising. The evidence though shatters some dearly held myths about League of Ireland attendances. For example, there is a perception that club supporters would tire of games involving the same Dublin teams too frequently in a season, but the paper finds that derbies (in Ireland these are almost completely between Dublin clubs) are strongly positive effects. Also, live TV broadcast of the game (or another game at the same time) has no significant effect on attendance and the weather seems to be irrelevant (either we League of Ireland fans are a hardy bunch or the switch to “summer soccer” has removed the weather as an important effect).
 
The key findings are that fixture quality, uncertainty of outcome (a better chance of a home win), geographical distance between the teams, recent team performance and seasonal competitive balance have positive effects on match attendance. The paper is comprehensive and should be used to inform decisions on restructuring and reform of the league. The author suggests that there is little evidence from his analysis that an increase in league size in justified and it is hard to disagree – since such a move would necessarily reduce the number of matches that had an important outcome at stake. The striking finding for me from the paper is the importance of outcome uncertainty – where “the perceived certainty of a match outcome adversely affects attendance for matches where the ex ante  home win probability is 0.25 or less” (page 504), and particularly that a fifth of matches fall into this category. This is strong evidence against an increase in the size of the Premier Division.
 
The author however goes on to recommend a “sizeable reduction” in the size of the Premier Division – and I think the case is less convincing here. The author doesn’t indicate what a sizeable reduction would be. Currently the Premier Division has 12 teams and the Conroy Report has recommended a reduction to 10 from the 2017 season. Is there a point after which the size of the Premier Division works against it being a credible competition? Greater match quality is assumed to accrue from a greater concentration of playing talent in fewer clubs and that these clubs would then be of closer quality. This may very well be the case but the semi-professional (or for some clubs amateur) status may work against clubs attracting talent, particularly for provincial clubs. A good player may be indifferent to playing with one of the many Premier Division Dublin or nearby clubs but it is more difficult for provincial clubs to attract the better players from Dublin.  In his most recent book, using a different measure, Stefan Szymanski noted that the League of Ireland was the most competitive European league, so this would seem to suggest the status quo is working in terms of competitive balance.
 
The Conroy Report refers (and the paper also makes passing reference) to having more games where something is at stake. This is not necessarily increased with fewer clubs (although more balanced clubs would likely mean greater uncertainty of outcome for individual games). The Conroy Report suggests having a break in the season where the division splits in two. In a previous post I suggested an MLS-style conference system with play-offs, which would keep clubs interested longer in the season.
 
Finally, although it is beyond the scope of Barry Reilly’s paper, the question needs to be asked about what the League of Ireland is for. If it is to generate greater interest (measured for example by attendances) then why not exclude clubs that have shown over many years that they cannot generate large crowds. Perhaps this occurs anyway with the loss of clubs like Monaghan United, Sporting Fingal and Dublin City – it is hardly likely that a club like UCD could be run on a commercial basis. However, if the league is intended to provide an outlet at senior level for as many Irish football supporters then a more regional structure is required and would need to be supported. It is relevant to note that only today the Irish Times reports that soccer is the most popular sport in Ireland – though this is hardly visible in attendances at League of Ireland grounds.
 
It is these questions that need to be answered before the league is reformed once again. The history of League of Ireland reform suggests that tinkering with league size or structure will fail to address medium to long-term sustainability without a fundamental soul-searching about the league among those who run it and care about it. Barry Reilly’s paper is a critical element in the discussions on what changes are needed, as (finally) we can point to evidence on which to base decisions.

by Declan Jordan

My research interests of regional and sports economics probably mean I am very drawn to locational or spatial factors affecting sports performance. There is a very large literature on the effects of location on the performance of businesses, whether measured by innovation, productivity or profitability. As far back as 1890, Alfred Marshall recognised the tendency for economic activity to concentrate spatially - driven, he suggested, by external benefits to concentration (now referred to as localisation economies) including knowledge spillovers, availability of skilled labour, and access to specialised inputs. Michael Porter argued in 1998 that "paradoxically, the enduring competitive advantages in a global economy lie increasingly in local things". Recently I have done some work on this spatial aspect of performance, such as here. 

This area is a potentially very interesting one for sports economics and regional science, as the special features of sports leagues and competition and the availability of data make it possible to get at important spatial effects.

An obvious feature of sports is the importance of different sports across locations. Of course some of this may be obvious, where winter sports are perhaps more likely to be popular in colder locations. However, are there significant differences in success rates spatially, and can these be attributed to local features? Ireland may be an interesting case here, since the country is so small it is difficult to see why sports may be consistently successful on a regional or spatial basis.

I have just begun to look at the data for Ireland, but the table below is an interesting starting point. It shows the location of the winners of the League of Ireland (football), All-Ireland Gaelic Football championship, All-Ireland Hurling championship and All-Ireland rugby league since 1980 categorised by NUTS3 region. There are, of course, some data issues. NUTS3 classification has not been in place since 1980, there have been winners of each title (with the exception of hurling) from Northern Ireland in that period [these have been excluded], and the rugby league has only been in place since 1992. I have chosen 1980 because it allows me to include a football winner from the Mid-West - my own club Limerick who last won it back then.

Some counties do not have a senior hurling team or a team playing in the League of Ireland or at senior club level in rugby. However, there is nothing to prevent a team from any county participating and progressing in each of these sports, and the failure to have a team at those levels may indicate the lack of popularity of those sports in that county and/or the dominance of another sport there. (A difficulty also arises for the separation of Tipperary into two NUTS regions, while they compete as one county in gaelic games. Tipperary championship wins have been split 50:50 between the Mid-West and South-East regions - which explains why there are "half-wins" in hurling).

The table shows the number and proportion of winners by region. It is noticeable that for each sport there is a region that has won over half of the titles. Also, the most successful region is different for each sport. In some regions the success is driven by one county (such as Kilkenny in hurling in the South-East or Kerry in Gaelic football in the South-West).

It is clear that even in a small country like Ireland location matters for success in particular sports. There are some possible explanations, such as a type of demonstration effect where athletes in a county/region are drawn to the success of a particular sport in that area. This means history matters and there is an element of cumulative causation. This could also occur in relation to attracting funding and sponsorship. Perhaps there are strong clubs at the level under these elite championships that generate stronger competition and better players and teams at the elite level.

These are all interesting potential explanations and the research agenda for spatial analysis of sports performance in a fascinating future research area.

By David Butler

Recently, I asked whether the  League of Ireland was the most complex football league in the world. The graphic in that entry provided a preview of work I’m conducting with Dr.Robbie Butler that analyses the changing incentive structures in the League of Ireland – here’s another one.  The chart below shows the average number of goals per game in the league from the 1971 to 2014.

The average number of goals per game  is on a downward trajectory over these years. In the League of Ireland, as in other football leagues worldwide, goals are becoming scarcer.

Since the 1993 season (where the lowest average number of goals per game is observed), the average has slightly increased. This coincided with a change in the competition design; 3 points, instead of 2, were awarded for a win. You could interpret this rule change as an incentive for teams to increase attacking play and the switch to a 3 point system may have stemmed the decrease somewhat.
 
If readers are interested in the idea of goals being under threat, I would encourage them to check out Anderson and Sally’s excellent book The Numbers Game.