By Daragh O'Leary

With the Rugby World Cup now finished, Irish rugby fans will be turning their attention back to the performances of their respective provinces in the Pro 14 competition. For me this is a somewhat happy change of pace from Ireland’s disappointing World Cup performance because Munster are riding high at the top of their conference and just off the back of three recent victories against Cardiff, Ospreys, and Ulster. However, previous to these three games Munster suffered a heavy 40-16 defeat at the hands of the Toyota Cheetahs. I thought this result was noteworthy because the Cheetahs also managed to batter Ulster 63-26 last month. I initially thought that the Cheetahs must have just been improving at an incredible rate from last season but then I started reading some articles regarding the Cheetahs’ suspiciously prolific home form.

The Toyota Cheetahs are a South-African rugby team based in Bloemfontein which play their home games in the Free State Stadium. What’s interesting about Bloemfontein is that it is located at an altitude of 1,395 m (4,577 ft) above sea level. To give this some perspective, Cork City is located at around 10 m above sea level. The issue with this is that teams who live and play at much lower altitudes to the Cheetahs, like Munster, find it difficult to acclimatise to playing when they go to Bloemfontein. The high altitude means that there is less oxygen, and this means players struggle with breathing which impacts on their performance. The high-altitude levels where the Cheetahs play their home games is largely considered to be the reason their home form is so good. It also explains why they recently beat Munster by 24 points at home despite failing to even score at Thomond Park last year.

To see how much truth was in this whole thing I took to data. I got the results of all the Cheetahs 2018/2019 Pro 14 matches (21 games) and compared their home and away performances.

In total the Cheetahs only won 8 games that season and 6 of these were at home. Not only did 75% of their wins come from their home matches but they score on average nearly 17 more points a game when playing at home. Obviously, the Cheetahs’ players are acclimatised to the high altitude which gives them an advantage over their travelling rivals. It’s incredible to see how much influence geography can have over a team’s performance. However, does the question of fairness not have to be asked in this situation? Does this home advantage not distort a lot of the results in the Pro 14 competition just because players are out of breathe when they travel to Bloemfontein?

By David Butler
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​As winter leagues across Europe start to take form at this stage of the season, it becomes easier to tell who will be in the shake up for a league title, playoff, relegation battle, etc.  When it comes to winning the league many household names top the tables in the big European leagues after 12 to 13 rounds of football; Liverpool, Juventus, Barcelona and PSG lead their respective leagues. Surprisingly, Bayern are slightly off the pace in the Bundesliga.

Of course, there’s a lot more to European football than the Big 5 competitions. The tables below consider club dominance over the last ten seasons for 54 UEFA members. The tables are ordered firstly by how many clubs have won the domestic championship over the last ten seasons from 2009/2010-2018/2019 (from 2009-2018 for summer scheduled seasons). Secondly, it is ordered by ‘streak’, which measures for how many years of the ten seasons did a club retained the title.  (The first table lists leagues with just 1-3 winners over the past 10 years, while the second lists leagues with 4 or more champions). 

The Belarus league is on one end of the balance spectrum, where BATE Borisov have won the last 10 titles. At the opposite end is the Kosovan league, which became a member of UEFA recently. Eight clubs have won this league. Only Prishtina and Feronikeli have retained it.

​As many in Ireland know, the domestic league – the League of Ireland – has been quite competitive historically. We have had six league winners in the last ten seasons. Interestingly, Dundalk’s recent dominance means that this level of competition may not be sustained into the future

By Robbie Butler

I am afraid this is another negative assessment of the ongoing circus that is VAR in the Premier League. I have previously address the topic here, here and here. The more I see of VAR, the more I believe the game would be better off without it. Here's why.

I watched the Aston Villa versus Liverpool game last Saturday afternoon. During the first half Liverpool's Roberto Firmino had a goal disallowed for offside. The assistant referee raised his flag as the Liverpool striker kicked the ball into the net. This in itself has become unusual, as more often than not this season, assistant referees have not raised the flag and allowed VAR to decide whether the goal should stand.

In this case, VAR was used to see whether the offside should be overturned, and the goal given. A freeze frame of VAR's decision is presented to the right.

Upon seeing this, my reaction was that the decision would be overruled and the goal awarded. Instead VAR confirmed the original offside decision, and the score remained 1-0 to Aston Villa.

Why this was the case remained a mystery to me, as it seemed Roberto Firmino was behind the last defender and therefore onside.

Shortly afterwards the Premier League issued the following tweet: 

"Liverpool's Roberto Firmino was flagged offside before putting the ball in the net against Aston Villa and the decision was confirmed by VAR. The red line signifies Firmino and was aligned to his armpit, which was marginally ahead of the last Villa defender". 

Firmino's armpit. In more than 30 years of watching football, I have yet to see a goal scored with an arm pit. 

However, the problem with this runs deeper. As was suggested to me (and I agree), had this been last season, prior to the introduction of VAR, those in favour of the technology would have used this as an example why VAR was needed. They would have argued that Firmino was onside and the goal should have been awarded. Yet, with VAR, the outcome remained the same. 

There is other unintended consequences too. I have spoken about such economic consequences from rule changes in rugby, horse racing and sports broadcasting previously. The Premier League's use of VAR has really opened up Pandora’s Box. In Greek mythology, this represented a gift which seems valuable but which in reality is a curse. Sounds a little like VAR.

When a goal is now scored, I believe the reaction of players and fans is somewhat mooted. The goal is effectively "delayed" until VAR approves it. In fact, the referee is no longer in control of the game, but rather carry's out the orders of those in Stockley Park - the home of VAR. Other sports only consult VAR when the referee requests such. 

This leads to a second order implication. Differences in referee power-relationships and experience levels must exist. Is the match referee one with 10+ years’ experience in the Premier League or a rookie? Is the referee in Stockley Park new to the Premier League or a seasoned pro? Working in academia one would experience this in many forums. For example, comments on a paper presented at a conference or external examiner comments. The experience of the academics both delivering and receiving the comments are crucial in this regard.

Another implication is the officials are now working under a different sets of rules. In the Carabao Cup recently there was no VAR. Arsenal scored a goal which VAR would have disallowed. The world didn't end because of this and Liverpool went on to win the game. I wonder to what extent the assistant referee's failure to see this (relativity) straightforward offside is influenced by VAR in the Premier League. Are officials losing confidence? Running the line is challenging and one can also assume how hard this has become under two different sets of rules. 

My hope is that the VAR experiment will end. I am very much in favour of technology in sport, but only where it improves the game. Goal-line technology has been flawless and is an excellent addition to the game. VAR's introduction has not been the same. My hope is appropriate in this regard because the last thing to come from Pandora’s Box was Hope. 

By David Butler

The League of Ireland 2019 season ended yesterday. The FAI cup final attracted 33,111 patrons to the Aviva stadium. This is by far the highest attended match in the League of Ireland calendar.

Considering the attendance numbers for this season, demand remains relatively stable from 2018. The published attendance data suggest that average attendance for a given match in the 2019 season increased by 37 attendees from 2018. 

The average attendance for a League of Ireland match this season was 2,162. The median was 2,104. The two highest attended matches were the Dublin Derbies when Shamrock Rovers hosted Bohemians (7,021 & 6,414). Shamrock Rovers held the 6 highest attendances this season; their two home matches against Dundalk are third and fourth highest at 5,015 and 4,705.

The lowest ten attendances were all at UCD home matches. These range downward from 542 to 392 (vs. Finn Harps) – the lowest attendance of the season.
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The graph shows the average home attendance by club for the 2019 season. 

By John Considine

This post started out as a question.  Could Milton Friedman and Leonard Savage have selected a better sporting example than billiards to illustrate their point about economic theory and its applications?  Billiards seems a very good choice to me.  The billiard table does not have the variability of a golf green.  There is no physical effort by an opponent to stop a player performing.  The question which I started with remains unanswered in my mind.  However, it lead to a few other questions.

Colleagues suggested that darts might be an alternative to billiards.  This suggestion took me to a Tinbergen Institute discussion paper titled "Incentives, Performance and Choking in Darts".  The paper has much to recommend it.  The paper finds that professional players do better than amateur and youth players.  It is somewhat related to the billiards illustration presented by Friedman and Savage paper.  However, the paper forced me to return to a neat 2017 Journal of Sports Economics paper by Mattie Toma.

Toma's paper examines the determinants of choking using shots from the free-throw line in basketball.  Free-throw line shots in basketball are not dissimilar to throwing darts.  Toma says "... college players destined to go pro choke dramatically more than do their counterparts who never make it to the professional level".  Choking might be a predictor of success!  Toma says, and here I'm paraphrasing, it could be because these college players care more about the outcome.

Under the heading "keywords", Toma lists "behavioral economics".  What do these findings bring to behavioral economics?  Behavioral economists frequently criticise the example of the expert billiard player used by Friedman (and Savage).  Richard Thaler devotes some time to the debate in Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics.  Thaler also discusses the literature on the "mistakes" made in drafting college players.  The discussion in the Toma paper makes it clear that the author is not suggesting that the incorrect players are drafted.  Instead, the author lists the limitations of the study as a guide to future professional careers and, more importantly, raises the potential that choking might be because of emotional investment in the sport.

Toma's paper, and the literature on choking in sport, raises issues for economics (including behavioral economics).  The literature attributes choking to situations where the player thinks too much.  Where the player engages in conscious thought about what they are about to do.  Choking arises because the player engages System 2 reflective type thinking (a classification found in some accounts of behavioral economics).  Performances are better where players rely on actions they have internalised and automated.  Intuitive System 1 type thinking does better than reflective System 2 type thinking.  Is this an anomaly for (behavioral) economics?

By Ed Valetine,

Imagine if someone got four numbers on the lotto, where you got five, but they got the bigger prize due to some sort of anomaly? It may seem unfair, even farcical. This would never happen in reality. However, sport can occasionally serve up anomalistic situations where it is more advantageous to be the runner up or loser in the long run.

Formula One has tinkered with its qualifying set up a number of times in the last 15 years in order to create a unique set of race management issues for the drivers to juggle in the search for a more entertaining product. The product was damaged somewhat with September’s Italian GP qualifying session where 8 of the 9 drivers in the top 10 shootout failed to set a lap time due to slowing down on the out lap to avoid missing the slip stream. It raised a few questions and gave rise to talk of shaking up the qualifying format in future seasons.

The FIA, Formula One’s governing body together with the commercial rights holder Liberty Media, recently discussed introducing the idea of sprint races to determine the starting grid for the main race instead of the current qualifying format where the slowest drivers do not make it into the top 10 shootout. It might make for interesting grids and more entertaining opening race stints, but could it eliminate certain anomalies that can advantage slower cars on the starting grid?

The current format comprises a first session of 18 minutes to decide places 16-20 (the five slowest cars). These five are then eliminated with the remaining 15 advancing to Q2 where the same is done for positions 11-15. The final session lasts 12 minutes and determines the top 10 starting order with the fastest winning pole position and so on.
 
It seems straight forward. It’s not.
 
Drivers who do not make the final session e.g. 11th – 20th can choose any tyres they like to start the race on while those in the top 10 must use the tyres they set their fastest lap on in that session.
 
Typically, the 11th – 20th place qualifiers will choose brand new “option” tyres for the race with those in the top 10 likely to have set their fastest laps on “prime” tyres. Prime are the fastest available tyre compound but do not last as long and are generally quicker by half a second a lap initially in clean air but this drops off a cliff quite rapidly. In a straight fight a driver on options can expect to lose .5-.75s a lap initially however this reduces and then cuts over to a dramatic gain in performance.
 
These prime tyres will have had a lap or two in “party mode” which means all of the go faster buttons have been activated to enable ultimate performance from the car. This can damage the tyre via wear and thermal degradation resulting in a 7-8% loss in performance and life - a significant amount. Occasionally, and depending on track conditions drivers in lower positions on the grid can be ahead into turn one thanks to the advantage of newer rubber off the line.

The figure and table of data aims to explain why it may be more beneficial to start from 11th place than 10th. The graphic provides points data on finishing places 9 -12. The table expands on this and show data from 1st to (in some cases) 24th position. 

Points data over the last 10 seasons has been analysed in this table, which demonstrates that in five of these 10 seasons* (*2019 season still in progress). Drivers starting from 11th position have outscored those in 10th. It is therefore more efficient to start from 11th because it means less mileage on the engine and gearbox plus reduces the risk of an accident or mechanical failure. It all amounts to lower cost and lower risk. Remarkably this season in a points sense it is 10 times better to start from last position than 10th.
 
Another contributing factor is that the 11th place grid slot is on the same side of the grid as 1st – the clean side. That’s worth a tenth or two off the line together with newer tyres. Beginning the 1st stint of the race on new tyres and track position helps to stay ahead of “faster packaged” cars as the race develops.
 
The data demonstrates that drivers at the back of the grid tend to outscore those who start in the midfield – this can be explained by the fastest cars, once or twice a season, starting from the back of the grid due to a penalty but then scoring a high points finish on race day. It also demonstrates the value of pole position though this is skewed in the current era due to Mercedes overwhelming performance advantage.
 
The scenario could be compared to finishing 2nd in a Champions League group in order to avoid playing a stronger team in the knockout rounds. Whilst it doesn’t reward out and out performance it does reward those genuinely attempting to achieve the best result overall result in the context of the wider tournament.
 
One solution to the qualifying anomaly is to have a FIFA style starting grid draw where the positions are drawn out of a hat with some seeding worked in to ensure some fairness across the field. This really would turn F1 into a lottery.

By David Butler

Recently, Andrea Agnelli (head of European football clubs association) has spoken of the need for innovations in the way European football competitions are organised.

An interesting aspect of his thinking was that other sports – the typical substitutes that might be expected to impact demand for any given sport – are not the major threat to football. Instead he suggested that video games, such as Fortnite, League of Legends or FIFA soccer, are going to be the competitors vying for the attention of consumers over the next two decades.

I recently listened to David Goldblatt on Matt Cooper speak about related topics which feature in his new book “Football in the 21st Century”. Goldblatt remarks on how the average age of the typical football fan at a stadium in the UK has gotten older. While there may be various reasons for this, is it the case that Fortnite, League of Legends or FIFA soccer (Agnelli’s concerns) are now keeping millennial's and generation Z at home?

The video game industry has grown significantly, and the quality of the product has drastically improved over the last 25 years or so.  My earliest memory of the FIFA video game was when Jason McAteer featured on the front cover in Ireland. In 1996 the game competed with Sensible Soccer and International Superstar Soccer (the other good football video games of the era). At the time these video games were complements -  mostly young fans who enjoyed playing, watching and attending football usually took an interest in the football video game too.
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If Agnelli is correct the ground might be shifting. Video games might just be evolving into a substitute. Perhaps eSports might become an important measure in the demand functions of the future. 

By Ed Valentine

Of all the places to see live Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees play against The Boston Red Sox – a classic box office fixture in the annals of bat and ball history - West Ham’s London Stadium would not be the primary venue on the list. Earlier this year MLB played, for the first time, on European soil with a 4-game series following the trend set by NFL and NBA with regular season games being contested in London.

​Whilst the flight across the Atlantic may not be the norm for American sports franchises, in logistical terms pitching their tent in Europe for a weekend or two every season is not a difficult undertaking. This can be contrasted to Formula One’s global circus where 21 of the World’s finest racetracks in the most glamorous of destination cities are visited every other weekend from March to December.
 
Th F1 circus is arguably the largest global touring sport. Thousands of tons of kit are transported across the world throughout the season with occasional back to back weekend races.  It’s a tough logistical exercise but could the current calendar be arranged to make the travel easier on teams and staff?

​Below is a table demonstrating the kilometers travelled from city to city under the current F1 schedule. 

The current calendar forces teams to clock up a total of 105,711 Km end to end with some tight turnarounds along the way. Take Race 2 to Race 3 - Sakhir, Bahrain to Shanghai, China. These are back to back Grand Prix which forces all of a team’s kit (fits into about 80 trucks) to be dismantled by the Sunday evening and flown to Shanghai and being fully operational by the following Thursday. Shanghai is 5 hours ahead and almost 7,000km away. Essentially the entire F1 paddock has to be dismantled and rebuilt on the other side of the world within 70 hours. The pit infrastructure and hospitality units are of the volume of 35 average family sized house moves per team. The aim of the game is not about packing up quickly but making sure it’s easy to reassemble at the other end. Every step has to be meticulously planned.
 
 
A quarter of the total annual distance is travelled by the 4th race weekend. The cash burn for these fly aways is easily $1million per week largely due to the travel. It must be a massive disincentive for new consortia who may want to enter the championship knowing that just to travel to work they’d be eight figures out of pocket. 

​By comparison the calendar could be arranged as per this table. The championship could begin in Europe and then move to North America. 8 rounds would be completed in the same transportation distance as the going from Melbourne to Bahrain under the current arrangement. Overall it would allow for a 40% reduction in distance travelled.
 
The limitations to this are that contractually some governments pay more to hold races at certain times of the year. Melbourne and Abu Dhabi will pay more to host the season opening and closing races than for any other slot on the calendar. In return there is the added exposure of the opening Grand Prix after a long summer break and the potential of a final race championship showdown. Monaco historically has to be in May and Silverstone marks the halfway point in the season.
 
​Formula One manages to pull this off every year without a hitch. There are lessons to be learned for global supply chains from F1’s collaborative freight management systems. I bet they even manage to keep within the Ryanair luggage allowance.

By Robbie Butler

During the summer of 2015, I wrote about the Republic of Ireland football team and the number of drawn games the team was involved in. 4 years ago, the Boys In Green led the way for the number of draws during UEFA qualifying for major championships (World Cup and Euros). With Ireland's fate now to be decided next month in the Aviva, I thought it timely to revisit this. The reality is that Ireland have become even more of an outlier.

Let's look closer.

The graphic below presented data on draw (blue)/win(red) /loss(green) outcomes for all UEFA nations between 2002 and 2020 qualifying, as of today. Yet again, the Republic of Ireland appear on the far left.

W​ith a loss rate of just 16 games, only 13 UEFA members have a better record than the Boys in Green over nearly 20 years. Belgium, Sweden, Czech Republic, Turkey and Greece have all lost more times.

However, despite losing more games, Turkey have played at the same number of major finals (3), Belgium 4 (and with Euro 2020 this will be 5), Greece 5 (including winning Euro 2004!), Czech Republic 6 and Sweden 7! 

As I said in 2015, we simply draw too many games. This campaign alone has witnessed three (Denmark, Switzerland and Georgia). As we now know, a draw at home to Denmark next month won't be enough. Let's hope we can avoid, what seems to be, the inevitability of this - a next month a draw is the same as a loss. 

By John Considine

Economists have always known the value of a good comparison to illustrate a point.

In 1996 Mancur Olson used a few in his "Big Bill on the Sidewalk" article.  Olson asked readers to compare the economic performance of East Germany versus West Germany.  Or the economic performance of North Korea versus South Korea.  The latter example must be one of the most widely used examples designed to illustrate the benefit of good institutions and rules.  Advocates argue that it can't be geography because of the disparities in wealth either side of a political line (although Jeffrey Sachs makes a good case for a geography contribution to the disparity).

The power of outrageous comparisons was a key element in the efforts to get US airline deregulation.  Wayne Leighton and Edward Lopez explain it in their book Madmen, Intellectuals, and Academic Scribblers.
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"A powerful weapon in these public hearings was the use of real yet outrageous examples, and the committee exploited them to full effect.  It showed that a traveller flying between Los Angeles and San Francisco, an interstate market not regulated by the CAB, would pay half as much as a traveller flying between Washington and Boston, or flying between two cities that were roughly as far apart and, importantly, that were regulated by the CAB".
 
Today, Sky Sports News produced a list of fine comparisons for their viewers.  Go compare!  Fines for racism are smaller than fines for infractions of kit regulations.