By Robbie Butler

Next year, Club Internacional de Fútbol Miami, more commonly known as Inter Miami will join Major League Soccer (MLS) and become the 26th active franchise in North America. The arrival of the Florida based team is well flagged, even within European circles, as it is linked to the 2007 contract that David Beckham signed when agreeing to play for LA Galaxy. MLS is different to European leagues in regards to many aspects, and here is yet another example.

The goal of most sports franchise owners in North America is to maximise profit. While this is advantageous in European leagues, clubs are more often regarded as 'win maximers'. The reason North American sports can focus on profit (as well as winning) is helped by the behaviour of franchise owners, who often manage or directly influence the leagues they compete it. Acting as a monopsony, owners behave in a manner that reduces the power of other stakeholders. e.g. players.

One way this can occurs is through league expansion. Creating a new franchise is no easy task. As North American leagues generally don't facilitate promotion and relegation, successful entry to a league means 'permanent' status. Such entry is then only permitted with the payment of a sizable fee, and full agreement of the current league members.

For evidence of league expansions one need only look at US soccer. By 2022, the MLS should reach 28 franchises. Inter Miami will be joined by Nashville SC next year, Austin FC (2021) and St. Louis (2022). 28 is a good number and a far cry from the original 10-team MLS that started in 1996. However, as the image below shows, it hasn't been all plain sailing.

​Since the league was inaugurated in 1996, three franchises have gone out of business. Worryingly for Backham and Co., two of these were based in Florida (Tampa Bay and Miami).

The most recent bankruptcy was Chivas USA, which left the MLS in 2014. Sale of the franchise to a group of businessmen, including Cardiff owner Vincent Tan, resulted in the emergence of Los Angeles FC in 2017.

This brings the number of major franchises in LA to 10! (NFL - Rams and Chargers; MLB Dodgers and Angels; NBA - Lakers and Clippers; NHL -Kings and Ducks; MLS - Galaxy). Only New York (11) has more.

One can only guess as to how much more the MLS will expand, but it would seem that 30 to 32 franchises may be the target. This would then put the sport in line with MLB, NBA or NFL. In fact, the current franchise map is starting to look very like the other major sports.

On the left, the current locations of the MLS sit reasonably well with the locations of NFL franchises. The return of a second MLS franchise to Florida would appear to make sense. As does the arrival of the first franchises in Missouri and Tennesse. 

The decision to create a 3rd franchise in Texas is a little less obvious but a first for the MLS. No other state will have 3 MLS teams. In fact, the only example of  major US sport with the three NHL franchises in the same city is that of New York - New York Rangers, New York Islanders and Buffalo Sabres.

By John Considine

After playing with J.B. Holmes during the 2019 British Open, Brooks Koepka articulated his displeasure with his partner’s slow play.  A few weeks later at the Liberty National, Brooks was more proactive but only a little more direct (initially speaking to Bryson DeChambeau’s caddy).  Brooks clearly identified the problem as primarily being associated with individual players.  Recently published research on the time taken on tennis serves finds that the biggest single explanation is the individual player involved.  More of that later.
 
A different perspective on slow play dominates Super Golfonomics by Stephen Shmanske.  The second chapter is called “The Economics of Slow Play”.  The third chapter is called “Golf Course Waiting: The Good, the Bad …”.  The fourth chapter is called “Golf Course Waiting: … and the Ugly”.  Shmanshe is more concerned with how the owner of the golf course can sweat the asset.  This is not surprising as economists tend not to see particular individuals as the primary cause of problems.  Monopolists might be bad for economic performance but it does not matter if the monopolist is called Mr Holmes or Mr DeChambeau.
 
The shot clock is not as obvious a solution in golf as it was in college basketball after the North Carolina and Virginia game of March 1982.  It is the type of solution that economists like.  It is straight forward and easy to apply.  Moreover, it applies equally to all teams.  Given the variety of shots in a round of golf, a shot clock is not as neat a solution in that sport.  Where a shot clock, and an associated time limit, is introduced then there is the issue of the appropriate time limit.
 
Time limits and shot clocks have started to play a greater role in tennis.  Looking at the research presented in a 2019 Journal of Sports Analytics paper one wonders why this is the case.  The paper examines first serves in the 2016 Australian Open – excluding exceptional events and circumstances.  Only 2 out of the 2034 time-rule violations were penalised.  Only 2.  And these were not the worst offenders in terms of time.  Is it the case that umpires do not see time violations as a problem?  Or are they unwilling and/or not capable of implementing the rule?
 
“A closer look at the prevalence of time rule violations and the inter-point time in men’s Grand Slam tennis” shows that physiological and tactical considerations influence the time taken.  The first may be subconscious whereas the latter is deemed to conscious.  But the highest impact on time taken is the identity of the individual player.  The authors note that it is a “well-accepted public perception that some players take more time between points”.  The same can be said of golf.

By Robbie Butler

As a teenager of the 1990s one of my favourite programmes on television was British comedy Men Behaving Badly. The sitcom followed the lives of two main charters (Gary and Tony) and their attempts to prolong their youth whilst sharing a flat together in London. The show was often highlighted for its political incorrectness and one has to wonder what reaction it might receive if it were aired today for the first time.

As a consequence, I was immediately drawn to a recent paper in the Journal of Sports Economics entitled "Universities Behaving Badly: The Impact of Athletic Malfeasance on Student Quality and Enrollment". The paper explore the relationship between the behaviour of university teams during competitions run by the National Collegiate Athletic Association in men’s basketball and subsequent student enrolment.

For example, it has long been viewed the superior performance in football or basketball at national level could attract more students to one of the 1,268 North American institutions and conferences under NCAA regulation. This paper finds that negative media attention also has an impact - such behaviour "could serve as a signal to prospective students regarding the quality of the institution". In other words, if the behaviour of sports teams does not meet the standards of the institution which they represent, how can we know the quality of teaching doesn't suffer from the same problem?

The paper goes onto say that following the introduction of a ban, as a result of impropriety, student enrolment suffers. However, this is likely short-lived and "rebounds" (no pun intended) once the ban is lifted. There may be a long term reduction in student quality. 

Those representing university teams therefore need to remember exact what they are playing for. ​The privilege to play is more than the opportunity to win. But also to promote one's university to prospective students and past alumni. 

By David Butler

Last February I had an entry about Magnus Carlsen,  the Norwegian chess grandmaster who (at the time) placed 111th in the fantasy football premier league game.

I went on to talk about a paper by Palacios-Huerta and Volij in 2009 in the AER that considers games of strategy and the process of backward induction. In a series of experiments, they show that chess players, who would be expected to have a superior strategic acumen to laypeople, behave closer to the actions predicted by game theory. Laypeople deviate from equilibrium predictions to a greater extent. 

This year, elite chess players have their own fantasy football league. This league features 13 identifiable chess players, many of whom are Grand Masters. If chess players are superior strategic thinkers would this give an opportunity to test how much of the fantasy football game is down to chance?

In UCC there is also a fantasy football league, many players are academics with a specific training in a particular subject.  A similar question could be asked - would economists, who study strategic decision making and rational choices score better than individuals with an background in other disciplines? The big assumption of course is that participants knowledge of Premier League football is constant. 

The table shows the average scores for game week 4 grouping individuals by their general subject areas. The economists didn’t come out on top last week. Of course, this was just one gameweek. The average score for the chess players in game week four was 61.54, an average that would put them second on this list. 

By Stephen Brosnan

Michael Jordan is widely considered the greatest player ever to pick up a basketball. Jordan, and the Chicago Bulls, dominated the sport throughout the 1990’s. The Chicago Bulls won six consecutive NBA titles in the seasons Jordan played between 1990 and 1998 (he took two years out to play professional baseball). Furthermore, Jordan won finals MVP in each of his six appearances.
​
Jordan played his last NBA basketball game for the Washington Wizards on April 16, 2003. Yet, sixteen years later his name still sits atop of the NBA’s Richest Shoe Deals. Table 1 shows the highest ranked players by earnings from shoe sponsorships in 2019.  Jordan made $130 million in 2019 from shoe endorsement deals. This is four times the value of second place Lebron James’ deal with Nike, valued at $32m.

The rich list contains each of the last twelve winners of the NBA MVP award (James, Durant, Curry, Bryant, Harden, Westbrook, Rose and Antetokounmpo). However, there are some names on the list that may surprise people. The list contains three retired players (Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade) highlighting the long-lasting effect of star power. Also, the number one overall pick of the 2019 NBA draft Zion Williamson is ranked number 7 on the list, ahead of last season’s MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, despite having not played a single minute of NBA basketball.
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Nike and the Jordan brand still dominate the NBA landscape for shoe deals, accounting for 76% of the sponsorship for top 14 ranked players. Adidas ranks second with 11% of the sponsorship deals followed by Under Armour (6%), and Chinese companies Ni-Ling (4%) and Anta (3%). The popularity of the NBA in the Chinese market has proved very lucrative for many NBA players. For example, newly recruited Brooklyn Net Kevin Durant (3rd) now sells more shoes in China than in North American market.

By David Butler

During the later stages of Joshua Robinson and Jonathon Clegg’s book ‘The Club - How the English Premier League Became the Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports the authors discuss the growing importance of pre-season tours. The big six now travel to the United States, Dubai, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa and Australia to showcase their brand. These trips are typically outside of Europe and involve tours of 2 to 3 matches or some sort of pre-season tournament such as the International Champions Cup.

Attendance data is available for all of the Big 6 (non-European) preseason friendlies for six recent seasons. I take account of when the big six play each other abroad outside of Europe.

Prior to the 2011 season a combined average attendance for the Big 6 pre-season tour was circa 250,000. This grew to circa 315,00 in 2013 and peaked in 2017-18 at approximately 340,000. Since then it has dropped back down to about 300,000 for the start of this season.

While there appears to be a minimal amount of growth at an aggregate level, this may however have been down to specific countries visited or stadium capacities. 

By John Considine

In the 24 hours leading up to tomorrow's All-Ireland Senior football final one of the main topics of discussion will surround the kickout.  This should not be surprising.  It is the most replicated and consistent restart in the game.  Free-kicks can approximate kickouts in number but are different in two fundamental ways.  First, kickouts are located in fixed space whereas free-kicks can have almost any location on the field.  Second, and related to the first point, the taker of a free-kick frequently has the potential to kick a score rather than seek to transfer the ball to a teammate.

Given the above, it would seem that kickouts would receive some examination in the scientific journals.  They have.  However, the literature is sparse.  This is probably due to the limited extent of the market for these statistics (and for gaelic football itself).  One paper dedicated to the subject was published in the Journal of Sports Analytics in 2018.  Darragh Daly and Roisin Donnelly examined the speed and distribution of kickouts in gaelic football.

The paper by Daly and Donnelly fulfils an often undervalued role for scientifc papers.  It confirms what a priori reasoning would suggest and provides a quantitative baseline for future work.  The results are reasonable.  They find that teams are more likely to retain possession when kickouts are taken quickly, travel a short distance, and when they travel to the sides of the field where there is more space.

Many a gaelic football fan will be unimpressed with such findings.  They might claim it was obvious to anyone who ever watched a game, gave the game a moment's thought, or read some of the excellent journalism on the game (here is a link to the Irish Times article from which the picture in this blog is sourced).  However, that is exactly the point.  It quantifies and confirms some basic "truths".  It helps paint a picture of the game at a point in time.  It adds to our understanding of the game.

By Robbie Butler

Some time ago I received comments on a paper I had co-authored examining aspects of clubs in the English Premier League. One of the reviewers found fault with our definition of club size which was essential for executing the empirics in the paper. It was a reasonable gripe but one that was hard to handle because we entered into the realm of subjectivity. 

What is a "big club"? I have heard countless arguments as to who is "bigger"; Liverpool or Man United. Spurs or Arsenal. Celtic or Rangers. Naturally, supporters of Manchester United will point to 20 league titles and a stadium that holds more fans than any in the Premier League. Liverpool fans counter this with six European Cups, twice as many as their great rivals. Arsenal, Spurs, Celtic, Rangers and countless other club supporters' will have similar circular debates. 

The answer of course is that there is no answer. While definitions and language are important in economics, finding a definition that can capture this properly has eluded most - me included - to date. I guess in the modern game one has to include three key variables; present status of the club e.g. Premier League, Champions League; past successes of the club e.g. trophies won; and revenue generation e.g. Deloitte Money League. 

If anyone is any doubt as to the legacy that Pep Guardiola is leaving at Manchester City, one need only to consider the tables below. 

​Under the three criteria listed above, one could have argued that Man City hadn't won enough silverware (past successes) to be considered truly a "big club". Pep has changed this in the space of two seasons and moved the club from a total of 18 trophies to 25, surpassing Everton in the process. It is highly likely that City will brush Aston Villa aside in the next 12 months and could even beat Spurs total of 26 by the end of 2019/20.

Chelsea are next on the horizon with 31. I wouldn't bet against this being reached in the not too distance future, and while Arsenal are a bigger ask to catch, City will be well established as the 4th most successful club (in terms of trophies won) by the time they set out to catch the Gunners. 

The "noisy neighbours" have become a "big" club and look set to go in only one direction.

By John Considine

The FIFA eWorld Cup took place in London earlier this month.  Half a million dollars was distributed between the 32 competitors.  A week earlier, the Fortnite World Cup distributed $30m amongst its competitors with the winner taking home $3m.  Some will question the “sports” classification of these games as ESports (aka eSports or E-Sports).  Few would argue that these activities are not becoming more economically important.  It is, therefore, not surprising to find a recent article on the phenomenon in the Journal of Sports Economics.
 
Michael Ward and Alexander Harmon use ESports “as a laboratory for understanding economic phenomenon”.  In particular, they examine the distribution of prize money.  They argue that the extreme skewness in earnings suggests that ESports exhibits characteristics of superstar markets.  Using data to 2017 they list the most popular ESports games.  Counter-Strike (and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive) top their list with 1,866 tournaments in the 21st Century and 11,686 professional players.  Examining the distribution of prize money by country, Ward & Harmon show that China leads the way with over $64m.  South Korea is second with almost $53m and the United States third with over $27m.
 
Using the economics of superstars, Ward & Harmon blend the discussion of ESports with that of other sports, artistic, and entertainment markets.  They test three hypothesis.  (1) Increases in the top prize money available to tournament winners will draw more amateurs into professional Esports.  (2) Player success in Esports in highly uncertain even after accounting for observable factors affecting player ability.  (3) Player with greater success will continue their professional career for longer.  The results and discussion provides a useful lens of the phenomenon.  I expect the Ward & Woodland paper to be a forerunner of many more on the topic.  A glance at the references in the Ward & Harmon paper shows that papers are also starting to appear in other disciplines.

I also expect to read more papers with similar discussions of the data collection methods.  Ward & Harmon say "Collecting relevant data from this website is a relatively straightforward process. ... the entire process can be automated using a programming language".

To put Esports prize money in context it is worth comparing the Fortnite prize money with that of the US Open golf tournament.  The winner of Fortnite pocketed $3m whereas the US Open winner pocketed $2.25m.  Second place in the Fortnite tournament earned as much as the winner of the US Open.  Those ranked between 25th and 100th took home $50,000.  It will be interesting to see if this gap increases.

By Robbie Butler

Recently, former Premier League manager Ian Holloway made some bizarre comments on Sky Sports show The Debate regarding Brexit:

"I hope we get out, Brexit, because that's what we all voted for. And sort that out because you cannot have someone telling us how to do our own game. FIFA and UEFA have brought these rules in, they told us we've got to use VAR that I’ve got no problem with, but that handball rule that they’ve made up, I don’t want to listen to them. That’s nonsensical," 

He later went onto say, "Brexit is nothing to do with the football rules, is it? I’m not that stupid, so I suggest people wash their ears out and listen. As an English person, I’m sick and fed up of being told what we’ve got to do. Our country is fantastic. If you let us make our own rules up, do what we want to do, we’ll be in control of it a lot better. I don’t like UEFA and I don’t like FIFA telling us what we should do in our English football game. We should take control of our own game, then that wouldn’t have happened. Let’s get out and stop the EU dictating to us what we can do. I feel exactly the same with UEFA and FIFA over our football."

Let's take a closer look at how inaccurate these comments are. 

The body with responsibility for developing and preserving the rules of the game are the International Football Association Board (IFAB), founded by the four British football associations. These originally consisted of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. However, following the formaiton of the Irish Free State  in 1921, IFAB  became the football associations' of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Each of these has one vote on the IFBA Board today. FIFA is now also a member and holds 4 votes, or 50% of the voting power. However, the rule changes that Holloway is opposed to needed 6 votes to pass, so at least 2 UK members were required to tell 'England what to do with their football game'. 

So instead of what Holloway is suggesting that "...you cannot have someone telling us how to do our own game. FIFA and UEFA have brought these rules in", they have not. 

He continues "If you let us make our own rules up, do what we want to do, we’ll be in control of it a lot better". But that is pretty much what you have. There are 211 FIFA affiliated associations. Only 4 are members of IFAB. The same 4 countries that voted in the Brexit Referendum. 

Finally, his comments "Let’s get out and stop the EU dictating to us what we can do. I feel exactly the same with UEFA and FIFA over our football", are inaccuarte becasue neither can dictate. In fact, IFAB could never pass another rule change again if just Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) decided to vote against every change. So 3 countries could block 208 others and FIFA. Where is the loss of control?

Holloway is not the only manager to comment on Brexit. Last year Cardiff City's Neil Warnock said:

"I don't know why politicians don't do what the country wanted, if I'm honest. They had a referendum and now we see different politicians and everyone else trying to put their foot in it. Why did we have a referendum in the first place? I can't wait to get out of it, if I'm honest. I think we'll be far better out of the thing - in every aspect, football-wise as well, absolutely. To hell with the rest of the world." The club were quick to point out that "These comments do not reflect the political position of Cardiff City Football Club, nor its board of directors."

While Warnock and Holloway appear to be stanuch Brexiters, Liverpool's Jurgen Klopp takes a very different view. Earlier this year the German said:

"What do you want? A not perfect situation alone or a not perfect situation as a strong partner in a very strong unit. That's only common sense. That's only common sense because history taught us that if you are alone you are weaker than the unit. I'm 51 years old so I have never experienced a war. We are really blessed in our generation, but the past showed us that as long as strong partners are together, Europe is a much safer place...Yes, we have problems but let's solve them...Just calm down and stick together and stop listening to people with no knowledge, from the right side because that's never the solution...I still hope that somebody will use common sense at the end and doesn't use the situation to try and improve only their own position".

While just 51, Klopp must surely have been only too aware of the devastating consequences of World War II and the partition of Germany. As the past 3 years have demonstrated, the UK appears to looks upon the years 1939 to 1945 as to how 'going it alone' in Europe is the key to success. 

I also wonder to what extent the presence of non-British managers in top English clubs, for about the past 20 years, is influencing the views of the likes of Warnock and Holloway. This generation of British managers were the first ever not to be given the chance to manage many of the top English clubs. That must be the EU's fault too.