By Robbie Butler

2021 will not just see the return of our annual workshop but also the publication of our new book Advances in Sports Economics.

Published by Agenda Publishing, this collection of chapters is a collaboration by members of the Centre for Sports Economics and Law (CSEL) at University College Cork and academics and policymakers across the world.

Advances in Sports Economics includes a wide-ranging collection of newly commissioned essays that examines the multifaceted field of sports economics in baseball, basketball, cricket, football, Gaelic games, horse racing, rugby and tennis. Both at the professional and amateur level, sport offers economists the opportunity to study the behaviour, choices and outcomes of decisions of players and referees as well as regulators and governments

The book includes contributions from those working at Lancaster University, University of Michigan, West Virginia University, University of Reading, University of Melbourne, Nedbank, Compecon, University of Liverpool, Northern Racing College, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Leeds University Business School, University of East Anglia, Loughborough University, La Trobe University and the Economic and Social Research Institute.

Advances in Sports Economics is now available to pre-order from Columbia University Press and should be available by early summer 2021. More details can be found here (USA) and here (Europe).

Our blog will now take its customary Christmas break and return on Monday the 25th of January 2021.

We would like to wish all our readers a very Happy Christmas and best wishes for 2021.

By Robbie Butler

We are pleased to announce that our annual sports economics workshop will return in 2021 following postponement in 2020.

The 6th annual event will return on the 21st of May 2021 with more details in the months ahead. The nature of the event will be dictated by government health advice and local guidelines.

​More information to follow.  

By Robbie Butler

The on-going Covid-19 pandemic has given many researchers the chance to examine the impact that no supporters has had on a variety of sports and outcomes. Some of the earliest of this work is now being published.

As the most recent post on this site noted, Economic Letters carried a piece by Marek Endrich and Tobias Gesche which examined foul play and referee biases. European Sport Management Quarterly have now published a case study on the demand for European football by James Reade and Carl Singleton.

These contributions add to a rich literature examining the effects of crowd noise (or lack-there-of) and psychological effects such as home advantage, travel, etc. on issues such as referee decision making and foul play. While the results vary there is a general acceptance that crowds matter and can influence players and referees during the course of a game. The removal of fans has led to a notable increase in the number of away wins and a less variation in the number of cautions given to home and away teams.

Enter Gaelic Games. 

Over the course of the next 14 days Ireland's two biggest sporting spectacles will take place. The All-Ireland Hurling and Football Finals will be staged at an empty Croke Park at a very untraditional time of the year (normally August/September).

The hurling final will see Limerick play Waterford, while the football final pits Dublin against Mayo. Dublin are attempting to win a record 6th football title in a row, while Limerick were hurling champions in 2018, bridging a gap back to 1973. Waterford and Mayo on the other hand are in different positions. Waterford have not won hurling's Liam McCarthy Cup since 1959. Mayo's drought goes back even longer and they have not won football's Sam Maguire Cup since 1951. 

While both Waterford and Mayo are outsiders in their respective finals, I believe the absence of spectators will be an advantage. The research in this area is yet to consider the psychological impact that repeated failure can have on "getting over the line". In the case of Waterford, this will be their 4th attempt to win a final since 1959. Mayo have lost a remarkable 9 finals since they last won in 1951. This will be their 10th attempt.

One has to wonder how much of this failure is down to the psychological aspects of the game. The build-up that week. The media attention. The expectation of friends and family. The match day. The crowd. The groans from fans as small margins start to go against the team. 

This time around both teams will face nothing both 15 others and silence. It might be enough for one or even both to prevail. Time will tell. 

By John Considine

A few weeks ago, an article in Economics Letters was titled "Home-bias in referee decisions".  Last week a section in an RTE report by Eoin Ryan included a section "Who fouls wins".  The former places the focus on the referee and suggests errors.  The latter places the emphasis on the players and suggests strategic behaviour.

As the name might suggest, and Mark Twain might advise, Economic Letters presents research is a shorter form than many journals in economics.  A recent edition included a three-page paper on the impact of Covid-19 crowd restrictions on foul play in German football.  The authors are Marek Endrich and Tobias Gesche.  Both are associated with institutions of Law & Economics.  Using 165 games played without crowds and almost three times as many games played before the crowd restrictions, the authors find that the gap between foul play by the home and away teams reduces.  I'm using the term "foul play" whereas the title of the paper is "Home-bias in referee decisions".  I want anyone who reads this blog post to realise that any difference in foul play might not be due to a bias introduced by the referee.  It is possible that the impact of the crowd is purely via player behaviour.

The introduction of technology to determine whether or not a player is offside provokes some debate but none of it is of the "machine-biased" variety.  We don't believe machines have emotions that might result in biased decisions.  Are there more machine-determined offside decisions against the away team?  If so then maybe it might prompt us to wonder if we overestimate, or overattribute, any bias in the decisions of referees.

Maybe economists are more likely to blame the referee.  Or maybe it is just those of us with a background in public choice (or government failure).  I'm also guilty of looking for such bias in the decisions of referees.  My hunch is that referees tend to favour the team that is behind.  A sort of human instrument in ensuring game-day competitive balance.  In a previous post, I explained how I checked the data from twelve games in the 2017 senior hurling championship and found that the team that was behind got 54% of the calls.  Possible referee bias?

Now consider the RTE piece that is based on data from the excellent SixTwoFourTwo website.  Here the referee is missing from the analysis.  It is the players that commit the fouls.  The suggestion is that it benefits their team.  The perspective is different to mine but the findings are consistent.  In both cases the data suggests that the winning/leading team commit more fouls or are penalised more often.  What differs is the whether one attributes the finding to the decisions of the referees or the players.  Like Endrich and Gesche, I looked to the referee.  Let me leave it at that rather than move into speculation as to why that is the case.

By Sean O'Conaill

Yesterday new arrangements for English football were published which detail the changes that are coming to football as a result of Brexit. Non UK players will require work permits and clubs will be locked out of signing U18 players from abroad.

For Irish players this creates unique situation. Irish footballers will not require a work permit to play in the UK thanks the the Common Travel Area between the UK and Ireland and adult footballers should not be impacted although questions remain about players u21 but over 18 players under 18 present a different issue. At present FIFA Regulations effectively ban any club signing a player from abroad who is under 18. The same regulations however do contain an exception for EU countries where players can be signed at 16 subject to a number of conditions once the UK finally completes Brexit unless there is a change to FIFA regulations or some express compromise agreed then the FIFA regulations are clear: UK clubs will be locked out of signing Irish players until they are 18.

Also implications in terms of training compensation that must be paid to a player's training clubs. When a player moves within the EU this amount is often capped at a lower level than if a player moves outside the EU. Irish schoolboy clubs will be due a bigger fee post Brexit. There is however increased confidence emerging from English clubs that they will not suffer the consequences of Brexit when it comes to young Irish players. I wrote this in last February and nothing has changed since. It is not clear what the English clubs' confidence is based upon as of yet.

Unless there is an Irish specific amendment to the FIFA RTSP or some understanding regarding interpretation is reached (which would presumably require the approval of the FAI) it is hard to see how the situation for Irish u18 players wont change on 1 January 2021.

By Colm O’Mullane

The author is a currently registered on the MSc in Research (Sports Economics) at University College Cork.

Accessibility to sports facilities is a key consideration for both governments and policymakers. To date, this issue has been investigated internationally but there has been little research about the accessibility to sports facilities in Ireland. According to research carried out by Teneo Sport and Sponsorship Index (TSSI) from 2019, Gaelic Games (Hurling and Gaelic Football) are the most popular sports in Ireland. Due to their popularity as the nation’s favourite sports, it is critical that all citizens have access to these facilities regardless of where they live or their standard of living. GAA facilities are ubiquitous on the island of Ireland, with nearly every small town and village boasting a team. The question that I ask is simply, are these GAA pitches located in more deprived areas?

In previous research Macintyre (2007) investigated the Deprivation Amplification Theory, that individual and household deprivation is amplified by area-level deprivation e.g. a lack of affordable nutritious food or a lack of facilities for physical exercise. Macintyre explored the commonly held idea that those who live in poorer areas have poorer access to resources and facilities for healthy diets and physical activities. Using the city of Glasgow in Scotland, Macintyre found that in the most deprived areas of the city the accessibility to large supermarkets for groceries is sufficient and that there is not a greater concentration of fast-food outlets in the area. Macintyre even found that in the more deprived areas that there is greater accessibility to green spaces. 

Higgs, Langford and Norman (2015) examined the accessibility to sport facilities in Wales. Using GIS analysis in their study, they successfully identified variations in the accessibility to facilities. They discovered that those in the most deprived areas have greater accessibility to publicly owned sport facilities. Whereas those in more affluent areas had better accessibility to privately owned facilities. There was a similar trend found the following year in a study by Hoekman, Breedveld and Kraaykamp (2016) who explored the landscape of sport facilities in the Netherlands. They found that there was greater accessibility to public pools in poorer areas and that there was greater accessibility to facilities such as golf clubs in more affluent areas.

With little research in the area in Ireland prior to this I believe that the findings will be of interest to the Irish government, policymakers and ordinary citizens.

By Ronan Fahy

The author is a currently registered on the MSc in Research (Sports Economics) at University College Cork.
​
In a flourishing sports economics literature it is fair to say that relatively little attention has been paid to Formula One. With just two races to go in the 2020 season many questions of interest to sports economists exist. Central to these is that of competitive balance.
 
The story of the season however is the inability of the likes of McLaren, Racing Point and Renault to get past the Mercedes and Red Bull. So far just four drivers secure a race win, which is reflected in race odds. The Haas, Alfa Romeo, and Williams drivers are consistently priced at 500/1, given no chance by the bookies of grabbing a race win.
 
This is well explained by the odds from the Spanish Grand Prix. Sergio Perez of Racing Point was priced at a very high 40/1 given his fourth place qualification. This was of course as he was starting right behind both Mercedes and a Red Bull of Max Verstappen. In comparison, for the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix in Silverstone, when Max Verstappen had qualified behind Nico Hulkenberg in the Racing Point as well as both Mercedes, he was priced at a much lower 12/1. Which the bookies will have wished was less, as he went on to win the race.
 
7 time world champion Lewis Hamilton has been consistently priced as favourite for every race this year, with very few fluctuations in this even after some poor qualifying performances. Relating back to outcome uncertainty, with his most recent win in Bahrain, Hamilton has had a win percentage this season of 73%. The highest ever win rate percentage was recorded by Alberto Ascari in 1952 with a 75% win rate. If Hamilton had won the final two races in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi he would have surpassed this and set a new record of 76.4%. However, Hamilton has been forced to withdraw from the race in Bahrain after testing positive for Covid-19.

Previous research has examined the sport. Below are some of the papers that have been published researching both competitive balance and demand in the world of Formula One.

1. Mastromarco and Runkel (2008) “Rule changes and competitive balance in Formula One motor racing”.
2. Budzinski and. Feddersen (2011) “Measuring competitive balance in Formula One racing”.
3. Judde, Booth and Brooks (2013) “Second place is the first of the losers: An analysis of Competitive Balance in Formula One”.
4. Schreyer and Torgler (2018) “On the Role of outcome uncertainty of demand in F1”.

 
Since the publication of these papers, which all have a common focus of competitive balance and outcome uncertainty  we have seen an unprecedented lack of outcome uncertainty in Formula One since 2010. From 2010 to 2020 only three men have managed to lift the World Drivers Championship (WDC) title. Sebastian Vettel (2010,2011,2012,2013), Nico Rosberg (2016), and Lewis Hamilton (2014,2015,2017,2018,2019,2020). As well as that, the World Constructors Championship (WCC) has only been won by two teams, Red Bull Racing (2010,2011,2012,2013) with Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team winning it every other year. As a result of this, outcome uncertainty in F1 has never been so low. This lack of outcome uncertainty is reinforced by the fact that Mercedes could have won the WCC this year by only counting Lewis Hamilton’s  points and not their second driver Valterri Bottas.
 
Mastromaro and Runkel (2008) give insight into the effect that rule changes in Formula One have, hypothesising that rule changes reduce the performance of teams and but in turn improve competitive balance between teams. The authors add to this by suggesting that rule changes are only implemented if the FIA’s revenue gain from the introduction of the new rule exceeds that of the existing rule.
 
Budzinski and Feddersen (2011) note that there are three dimensions to be analysed when looking at competitive balance. These being: race-specific competitive balance, within-season competitive balance and between-season competitive balance. As a result of this research it must be said that although the 2020 season has seen extremely low outcome uncertainty in terms of the WDC and WCC, it has seen one of the highest ever race-outcome uncertainty levels with close to the highest ever number of different drivers seen on the podium in one season.
 
Schreyer and Torgler (2018) use an interesting revised version of the model used by Budzinski and Feddersen (2011) to proxy outcome uncertainty. The authors describe that although the existing papers method of calculating gini coefficients based on qualifying times to gain a measure of competitive balance is useful, it gives too much weight to the effect that drivers at the back of the grid have on race outcome. For this reason, the authors hypothesize that race outcome uncertainty can be sufficiently estimated using the summed differences between the top three qualifiers. 

By Cathal Buckley

The author is a currently registered on the MSc in Research (Sports Economics) at University College Cork.

There is an ever-growing body of literature concerning the topics of volunteerism and volunteer motivation in both sporting and non-sporting spheres, with volunteers being the lifeblood of various sporting organisations throughout the world.

In research conducted by Sport Ireland (2019), it was identified that 46% of the Irish population regularly participate in sporting activities. The report also revealed that 12% of the respondents regularly volunteered in sport, while a further 40% reported that they had volunteered in the past.

While previous studies have sought to identify the motives of volunteers in various sports in numerous geographic locations, such as in UK swimming clubs (Burgham and Downward, 2005), in an American soccer program (Busser and Carruthers, 2010) and in Australian community rugby clubs (Hoye et al., 2008), there is an academic gap investigating the motivations of volunteer football coaches in Ireland specifically.

It has been well documented that volunteers play a key role in the provision of community-based sports (Cuskelly et al., 1998; Cuskelly, 2004). The Children’s Sport Participation and Physical Activity Study (2011) identified that “unpaid volunteers made up 97% of the total workforce in junior sport”, with volunteers typically being a parent of a child involved in the sport. Further to this, it has been identified that volunteers involved in sports were likely to have children involved at the time of the research, or to have had previous experience in the relevant sport (Burgham and Downward, 2005; Busser and Carruthers, 2010). 

Considerable attention has been given to identifying the motivational factors which encourage volunteers to engage in volunteer activity. Various methods have been adopted to identify motives of volunteers. Based on previous survey-based studies conducted on the topic of volunteer motivation, Cnaan and Goldberg-Glen (1991) identified 28 motives which they considered to be the most important.

Clary et al. (1998) developed the Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI), designed to assess the six functions which they hypothesised to be served by volunteerism - values, understanding, social, career, protective and enhancement. These functions have been used in many studies since, including in assessing the functional motivations of volunteers in a municipal park and recreation agency’s soccer program in America (Busser and Carruthers, 2010), which adopted the VFI, albeit with some minor changes made to reflect the sporting context.

This area deserved further exploration and I hope to be able to extend the literature and understand the motivations of volunteer football coaches in Ireland today.
 
References

• Burgham, M., & Downward, P. (2005). Why volunteer, time to volunteer? A case study from swimming. Managing leisure, 10(2), 79-93.
• Busser, J. A., & Carruthers, C. P. (2010). Youth sport volunteer coach motivation. Managing leisure, 15(1-2), 128-139.

• Clary, E. G., Snyder, M., Ridge, R. D., Copeland, J., Stukas, A. A., Haugen, J., & Miene, P. (1998). Understanding and assessing the motivations of volunteers: A functional approach. Journal of personality and social psychology, 74(6), 1516.
• Cnaan, R. A., & Goldberg-Glen, R. S. (1991). Measuring motivation to volunteer in human services. The journal of applied behavioral science, 27(3), 269-284.
• Cuskelly, G. (2004). Volunteer retention in community sport organisations. European sport management quarterly, 4(2), 59-76.
• Cuskelly, G., McIntyre, N., & Boag, A. (1998). A longitudinal study of the development of organizational commitment amongst volunteer sport administrators. Journal of Sport Management, 12(3), 181-202.
• Hoye, R., Cuskelly, G., Taylor, T., & Darcy, S. (2008). Volunteer motives and retention in community sport: A study of Australian rugby clubs. Australian journal on volunteering, 13(2), 40.
• Sport Ireland. (2019). Irish Sport Monitor: Annual Report 2019. [online] Available at: https://www.sportireland.ie/sites/default/files/media/document/2020-09/irish-sports-monitor-2019-report-lower-res.pdf  [Accessed: 30 November 2020]
• Walsh, J., Tannehill, D. and Woods, C.B. (2011). The Children’s Sport Participation and Physical Activity Study (CSPPA) – Volunteer Study. Research Report No 2. School of Health and Human Performance, Dublin City University and the The Irish Sports Council, Dublin, Ireland.

By Colm Pearson 

The author is a currently registered on the MSc in Research (Sports Economics) at University College Cork.

Last Wednesday the Republic of Ireland’s lacklustre 0-0 draw with Bulgaria in an empty Aviva Stadium, Dublin capped off a frustrating international break for the Boys in Green. This is the last we shall see of the team until March 2021. Some of us might be optimistic that with recent Covid-19 vaccine developments that the next game may come at a time it is safe for fans to return to the Aviva Stadium to shout on the home team.

The last time fans appeared in the Aviva was on the 18th of November 2019. Back then nobody would have predicted that this was the last time we would be allowed enter the Aviva for over a year. The game itself was a 1-1 draw with Denmark with 50,000 spectators. This was the highest attendance recorded in the Aviva for the Euro 2020 qualifying campaign.

The table below illustrates the large variation in attendances for Rep. of Ireland games over the four qualifiers in 2019, with only 36,281 in attendance against Gibraltar. The question can be asked, why did the game against Denmark sell out and why was there so many empty seats against Gibraltar?

Academics have been studying the demand for sport for as long as the field has been in existence. The demand for sport is not like your average good. As described by Neale (1964) the demand for sport is peculiar. This is because when one fan attends a sporting contest, they improve the experience of other fan’s in attendance by improving atmosphere quality. The current experience of empty stadiums around the world demonstrates just how much fans at to the overall context of the match experience.

Most of the work done on the demand for football has indicated that match quality has a positive effect on football attendance, in particular away team quality. For example, in the table above, Denmark and Switzerland recorded higher attendance than Georgia and Gibraltar. One explanation of this is that home fans wish to watch talented visiting players. Stars like Xherdan Shaqiri and Christian Erikson were far more appealing for Irish soccer fans than the part-time post players that lined out for Gibraltar.

The other key difference between the games was what was at stake. Attendance was likely maximized against Denmark due to a concept known as seasonal competitive balance. This match was the penultimate game for the Group D Euro 2020 Qualifying Group. Denmark were poised to take second in the group and an automatic place at the Euro 2020. Irish fans filled the stadium in the hope that their team could secure 3 points that would seal a place amongst Europe’s elite.

​However, when you look at competitive balance at the match level one might have said these fans were somewhat optimistic as Denmark were favourites to win the match at 153/100 compared to Ireland who were priced up at just over 3/1. Nevertheless, the Aviva filled out for the contest. Perhaps this is more evidence that competitive balance in the medium term has more of an effect on attendance than in the short run. I think I can speak for us all when I say the sooner we can all return to the Aviva the better.

By Robbie Butler

In late September 2020 were welcomed 5 Masters by Research (MSc) students into the Centre for Sports Economics and Law. With our supervision team (all of whom have posted on this website), we are ​investigating areas include Formula One, football internationals, access to sports facilities, volunteerism in sport and golf consumption in Ireland.

Next week the MSc candidates will share details on their work to date and provide an overview of the significant literature in each area. 

We expect to run the MSc again in 2021. Details for interested parties can be found in here and here.