By Robbie Butler,

Following on from recent publication successes in the Scottish Journal of Political Economy and European Journal of Operational Research, we were delighted to be accepted recently in European Sports Management Quarterly (ESMQ).  

The paper "New Insights on the Louis-Schmeling Paradox: Determinants of Demand for Subscription and Pay-Per-View Boxing" is co-authored with blog contributor David Butler and Head of Department, and Professor of Economics at Drexel University, Joel Maxcy. 

Despite its longevity and historical importance, boxing is a sport almost devoid of attention in the sports economics literature. To remedy this we created two new datasets and asked what are the determinants of main event broadcasting viewership and pay-per-views buys? In addressing this question we offer new insights on the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis [UOH] and extend research on direct demand for an individual sport.

For main events, we find conflicting evidence to the UOH. Fans show a preference for rematches, domestic boxers and heavier divisions. NFL broadcasts and earlier scheduling negatively impact viewership. For pay-per-views, we find a positive price effect - largely thanks to Floyd Mayweather Jr. Both types of broadcasts exhibit a negative trend with viewership and PPV buys declining over the period of time we examine.

The paper is currently in press and will be available shortly from ESMQ.

By David Butler

The end of game-week one in the 20/21 Premier League brought with it the 100th match behind closed doors (BCD). The change is stimulating a cottage industry of research papers analyzing the effects of fans not being present in stadia.

No doubt aggression is one area being explored. There was no sending’s off last weekend, albeit it was only an 8-match game-week – I say sending off as Kyle Walker-Peters was issued a red card but Jon Moss overturned his call, following consultation with VAR, and the Southampton player was reprieved. The challenge was downgraded to a yellow card. For the 15 EPL matches with fans present at Selhurst Park last season, Crystal Palace averaged a home attendance of 25,060 – would Moss have been influenced by them if they were present?

For the 100 matches BCD there has been 9 red cards issued. For the 100 EPL matches before this there was 13 red cards – not much of a difference. If we take all EPL matches for last season, prior to the restrictions, the average red card award ratio was 0.12.

There seems to be a small reduction in the number of red cards (I’m guessing not statistically significant).  The change in yellow cards is another issue. 

This minor decrease in reds might be related to the absence of fan pressure on referees. It may also be due to players not having a crowd to respond to. Maybe players are less aggressive towards opposition players when there is nobody present to rile them. There is another possible interaction; fans venting that motivates players to pressurize officials. If there are any aggression effects when more data becomes available, disentangling these direct and intermediary causes will be tricky.

By John Considine

Fulham will be playing in the Premier League after they defeated Brentford in the English League playoffs.  At the time of the playoff final, I had just finished reading The Expected Goals Philosophy by James Tippett.  If Brentford had won then I might have written this post earlier because the club features prominently in this short book.  Instead, Brentford were defeated and the pattern of them selling their better players continued.  This week Ollie Watkins left Brentford for Aston Villa.  Another player to add to the 15 that Tippett lists with their purchase price and selling price (earning £96.7m profit for Brentford).

On the surface, The Expected Goals Philosophy is the type of publication that I warn others against.  I could not identify the publisher and the author was not a person I had encountered elsewhere.  After a few chapters, it is easy to get the impression that the author is the type of person that the publishers might be inclined to avoid and the type of person that might not be too impressed with any publisher.  As I started reading I got the impression that this was a man angry with the mentality of the average football fan.  The main source of his anger seemed to be what he perceived as their unwillingness to critically evaluate the game.  Nor is he impressed with the sports broadcasters and their choice of pundits.  Or to use James Tippett's words, "Less intelligent ex-professionals dominate the inner relams of sport, whilst the smarter analysts find themselves struggling to have their voices heard".

As the anger subsides, The Expected Goals Philosophy developes into a well structured and clear explanation of the use of data in football.  Figure 3-1, and the surrounding dicussion, mark a turning point.  Figure 3-1 presents on the Google Search for expected goals after an outburst against the statistic by Jeff Stelling.  After this the anger at the pundits, broadcasters, and fans subsides.  What follows is a step-by-step explanation of the construction of the expected goals and expected assists statistics.  This is combined with illustrations familiar to Tippett.  Hence the sizable chapter devoted to Brentford.

The book includes just enough data to illustrate the points that Tippett wants to discuss, e.g. the best player in the world according to the statistics on goals and assists.  It is also presented in a way that makes it easy to understand.  It is one of the best introductions to the use of statistics in football.  It is the polar opposite of those textbooks that carry titles like "Statistics for Sport" where the authors write books about statistics and illustrates them with some data from sport (often the data is hypothetical).  This is a book that is worth reading for anyone unfamiliar with the calculation and use of the term "expected" in football analysis.

Tippett, and others, might remember that the purpose of pundits is NOT to predict scores or results.  Their purpose is to engage the public (customers).  A team mate explained this to me as a teenager.  After one particular game, it seemed to me that everyone believed I had given one of the better performances.  However, the newspaper report did not mention my performance.  Instead the reporter focused on the poorer performances of two of my better known colleagues.  Decades later I can still remember the words of my team mate, "The readers don't want to know who played well or badly.  They want to know how well or badly the players that they know played."  The newspaper reporter understood.

By Robbie Butler

When Novak Djokovic decided to hit a tennis ball, in frustration, towards the back of the court earlier this week he effectively started a new era in tennis. For the first time since 2012 (Andy Murray) there will be a first-time Grand Slam winner. Should they only win one title for the remainder of their career, it will be the first time this has happened since Marin Cilic - who incidentally won the US Open in 2014. If Cliic wins another Slam, you will have to go back to Juan Martín del Potro in 2009 to find the last winner of a major that won just one. Again the US Open. 

In 2014 and 2017 I blogged on this. I didn't expect to still be blogging about it in late 2020 but such is the dominance of Djokovic, Nadal and Federer. And this is important because it strikes to the heart of the origins of sports economics - uncertainty of outcome and competitive balance. 

This year's US Open is the first Grand Slam in 16 years where none of the "Big 3" - Roger, Rafa or Novak will appear in the semi-final stage. It is quite a remarkable statistic and demonstrates the sheer dominance of the Big 3. But has this concentration of major titles impacted spectator interest? Certainly not. Yet it is almost four years since anyone other than those 3 has won a Grand Slam - Stan Wawrinka (again the US Open).

The changing of the guard this year might in fact reduce interest in the sport as it is likely Federer and Nadal, in particularly, will feature less and less in major tournament finals. The interest and goodwill than both player endear has been nothing but wonderful from men's tennis. In fact, it is likely that the retirement of both players will lead to a massive increase in uncertainty of outcome, and with it, lower interest in the sport.

Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe people are tired of seeing the same players win. However, the cheering and support than greet Federer and Nadal at major tournaments would seem to suggest otherwise.

By Robbie Butler

With the English Premier League set to return on Saturday there will be many predictions on the season ahead. Who will be crowned champions? Will Pep's City come roaring back? Will Liverpool, having gone 30 years without a league title, now win two in a row? Can Ole, Jose or Mikel get their respective teams to challenge City or Liverpool? And what about Chelsea. Could they win the title after spending so much money?

Naturally, there will be other prediction as to who will get relegated, what manager will be sacked first, what teams will reach Europe, and on and on. The variety of predictions (often in the form of bets) is almost endless.

Listening to the "experts" will help - at least at an individual match level. This is what our recent paper in the European Journal of Operational Research has found at least.

Our paper analyses the forecasting accuracy of experts vis-à-vis laypeople over three seasons of English Premier League matches from 2014 to 2017. We find that former professional football players have superior forecasting ability when compared to laypeople. 

There currently limited free access to the paper for the next 30 days available here. 

By Robbie Butler

Just like John in the post before this one, I too watched Stage 5 of the Tour de France. However, unlike John, my motivation was not to watch the cycling but rather the route in southern France that finished in the small town of Privas.

Most people (French people that I have met included) have never heard of Privas. With a population of less than 10,000 people it is easy to understand why. However, the town is a commune of France, and capital of the Ardèche department, the smallest administrative centre of any department in France. The reason I know is Privas is because I was lucky enough to visit the area 5 times during 2010-2013 while completing my PhD. It was fantastic to see the sprint finish into the town, along it's narrow streets, a far cry from the Champs-Élysées where the tour will finish.

And turning to Paris, where the Tour will end on the 20th of September, one can imagine that the Champions League loss is still fresh in the memory of Parisians. The end of the Tour might be a welcome distraction for many. The club's first appearance in the showpiece European game did not work out as expected. And while the champion of the Tour de France will always be crowned in Paris, the Champions League trophy has never been to the French capital.

And Paris is not alone in this regard.

One my second trip to Privas in 2010 I spent the entirety of my TGV journey from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Valence (south of Lyon) reading the wonderful Soccernomics by Kuper and Szymanski. I couldn't put it down. It was one of those rare books that I had to stop myself from reading, so as to have it for just a little longer. One of the earlier chapters recalls the success of club football teams in the European Cup. It is somewhat remarkable how so few clubs from Western capital cities have won the competition. PSG and Paris remain in this list.

The Table below lists the number of times the European Cup/Champions League trophy has been won by capital cities and regional cities in Western Europe. Just two other countries have clubs teams that have won the cup - Romania and the Former Yugoslavia. In both cases the teams were from the capitals (Steaua București (1986) and Red Star Belgrade (1991). Both were under dictatorship communists government at the time of their success. 

Berlin, Edinburgh, Rome and Paris are all devoid of success. This is not to mention Athens, Bern, Brussels, Copenhagen, etc. who will probably never boast the winner. Instead the power lies in the regional cities. Places like Munich, Milan, Liverpool, Manchester, Barcelona and Turin. And historically in cities like Birmingham, Nottingham, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Glasgow, Porto and Dortmund.

Kuper and Szymanski hypothesize why this might be the case, and why capitals like Paris could emerge as winners in the not too distance future. But for now, Neymar and co. will have to wait. 

Yesterday, I tuned in to the coverage of the Tour de France on Eurosport.  It was a couple of kilometres before the leaders arrived in Veynes.  Unfortunately, I could only watch the coverage until it passed Col du Festre.  Between these two points, viewers were treated to a range of material that would not be out of place in an economics course.

As the breakaway group of six riders approached Veynes, Carlton Kirby and Sean Kelly discussed the possible strategies that might be in play in the upcoming intermediate sprint.  There was a financial incentive to be in the first three riders as the winner received €1,500, second received €1,000, and the third rider over the line received €500.  The commentators wondered if the riders from the bigger teams would allow the riders from the smaller teams collect the financial rewards.  In addition to any need related to their "socio-economics status", it might also encourage greater effort on the day itself.  When that did not come to pass, the commentators started discussing if the size of the prize encouraged more individual rather than group action.  There followed a comparison with the prize money on offer in the Vuelta.  In doing so the commentators explained how, only a few years ago, the third place prize money on the Vuelta was €15.  Incentives and behaviour.

Green Jersey points were also on offer in Veynes.  Ireland's Sam Bennett brought the peleton over the line and the points collected drew him level with Peter Sagan.  A day later he would be the first Irish man in green since the previously mentioned Sean Kelly in 1989.

After leaving Veynes, Kirby and Kelly got to discussing the resistance efforts, last meal, and economic policies of Francois Mitterrand.  The discussion prompted by Mitterrand's resistance links to the region.  His reduction of the working week and his wealth tax featured strongly.  A bit of economic history.

Kirby then got to discussing one of the two French riders who might win the overall classification.  He suggested that the French organisers might have designed this year's tour to engineer a French winner.  Kelly was having none of it on a cycling level but his comments suggested that it was not beyond the authorities to engage in such behaviour.  Public choice scholars would approve.

At Col du Festre there was €300 on offer for the first rider plus two points in the King of the Mountain classification.  The smaller prizes only briefly stirred the interest of the commentators.  And that was where I had to leave it.

By David Butler

This is the fifth and final part in a series of short posts offering insights to different topics for the 19/20 Premier League season. Previously, I considered VAR, Expected Goals, Possession and Team Performances (see posts below).
Success probabilities based on bookmaker odds are the topic of this post.

According to bookmaker odds (adjusted for the overround), the home team had a 44% chance of success on average last season. There was a 32% chance of an away win and 24% chance of a draw. These are means and success probabilities vary by club.

​The chart below shows the these average probabilities for each club in descending order from Manchester City (80% chance of a home win) to Norwich (27.5% chance of a home win). 

By John Considine

Over the last couple of weeks or so there has been plenty of media coverage of the predicted grades of students leaving second-level education in Scotland and England.  At times I wondered if I was in Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average.  It was revealed that the teachers grades for the class of 2020 were on average 12% higher than those achieved in the examinations by the class of 2019.  Does anyone think that the class of 2020 is on average 12% better than the class of 2019?

Attempts at moderating the grades were not well received and moderation was subsequently overturned.  I wonder how the teachers who returned relatively lower grades are feeling.  Possibly like players who try to stay on their feet, after being tackled/fouled in the penalty box, only to go unrewarded by a weak referee.  If we are in a similar position next year then expect those teachers to have learned their lesson.

It reminded me of another hard to believe 12% increase.  In 2011 we were informed of a 12.4% increase in Irish sporting participation between two editions of the Irish Sports Monitor.  The 2009 edition listed participation in sport at 33.5%.  The next edition of the Irish Sports Monitor was published in 2011.  Participation was listed at 45.9%.  There was also a whispered warning about collection methods.

That is a 12.4% increase over two years.  Yet on page 12 of the 2009 Irish Sports Monitor it said “participation rates in sport and exercise do not generally alter by more than around a single percentage point per year”.  At the time, it was my students who spotted the change.  It was part of a project on the government funding of sport.  I contacted the Irish Sports Council for clarification.  The clarification was like something one would get from an EU Commissioner accused of breaking Covid-19 guidelines.  I even invited my contact to talk to the class at a time of their choice.  Nothing doing!

A couple of years later, the next Irish Sports Monitor is published.  The 2011 figure is revised downwards to 44.8%.  There was probably a genuine reason for this.  That said, I can't get the following sentence, from Nineteen Eight-Four, out of my head.  "Winston's job was to rectify the original figures by making them agree with later ones."

I have written previously about the strange bobble in the figure in 2015 (here).  But let us move forward to 2019.  The figure from the 2019 Irish Sports Monitor is 46%.  It was 45.9% in 2011.  Accepting a margin of error, it seems we can believe the numbers between 2011 and 2019.  In the absence of a flu pandemic was a 12.4% increase in two years believable?  It is about as believable as saying that the class of 2020 is on average 12% better than the class of 2019.

By Robbie Butler

It is easy to forgot that the 2020 Six Nations is still on-going. The tournament, which started on the 1st of February 2020 has 4 remaining games. The first, Ireland versus Italy, will be held on the 24th of October. This will followed by the final round of fixture on the 31st of October, involving all 6 nations. 

The postponement of Ireland and Italy in Dublin was the first high profile sporting causality of Covid-19 on these islands. As the months have past some competitions around Europe have been cancelled, some postponed, and others successfully played behind closed doors. In some instances, completing the competition was essential for the season that will follow. Crowning a champion is important, but probably not as critical as promotion and relegation. Completing the Premier League was therefore much more important than the Champions League (Bayern Munich fans will obviously disagree). 

This is what makes the continuation of the Six Nations interesting. There is no relegation or promotion. It is not dissimilar to major US sports where entry is closely guarded and collective action of "owners" is viewed as very much positive for the sport as a whole. While promotion and relegation are sometimes mentioned in the context of the Six Nations, it is extremely unlikely this will ever happen. The same way it will never happen in the US. Crowning a champion and fulfilling the broadcasting agreements are probably what is driving the need to finish the competition.

The return of live international rugby is very much welcome. Let us hope that a return to more normal times at the Aviva, Stade de France, Twickenham, etc. is not too far away.