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.

By Robbie Butler

For all sports economics fans, the excellent online University of Reading seminar series ROSES continues today at 2.30pm with Alex Farnell of Lancaster University presenting “Special Ones? The Effect of Head Coaches on Football Team Performance”.

Commencing in late March 2020, this seminar series will surpass 40 presentations by the 18th of December. Many of the leading names in the field have presented to date and the material is always interesting and engaging, as are the discussions that often follow.

The quality of the work to date, and the continuation of the series, are testament to the work of those involved. It is super achievement for the organisers James Reade, Carl Singleton  and Adrian Bell, all part of the Football Research Group at the University of Reading.

Full details of upcoming events and the back catalogue of presentations can be found here. 

By Daragh O'Leary

A phrase I seem to hear constantly from football pundits when discussing the success of teams in the Premier League is ‘the rub of the green’. The phrase is commonly used in sports, particularly golf, to mean that teams need to get their fair share of good fortune in order to achieve success. While there is a lot more than luck which determines success in the Premier League, it is fair to say good fortune plays it’s part in helping teams go that extra yard. A team that I have constantly heard are not getting the ‘rub of the green’ this year is Sheffield United.

Despite finishing 9th last season, the Blades are currently rock bottom of the league with just one point to their name after nine games. I have heard many commentators say that Sheffield United are a good side, but they just don’t seem to be getting the breaks they got last season. While it’s nice to hear football pundits speak with a bit of sympathy for teams, I’m curious to see if there is any way to test whether United’s poor form this season is due to luck. The only statistic I could think to use that may act as a proxy for luck is the number of times team’s hit the woodwork i.e. the crossbar or post.

Hitting the woodwork can be seen as misfortunate because in the vast majority of cases it indicates that a player’s shot has beaten everything but the frame of the goal. Fair enough you could argue that hitting the crossbar is a failure in accuracy, but you really are talking about centimeters. In any case I think most players and fans would deem it unlucky if a player shoots at goal and beats the keeper only to be denied by the post. Therefore, the premise of this analysis will be to assume that each time a team hits the woodwork, they were denied a goal in an unfortunate manner which could’ve helped their points tally.

To test how this would impact on their points tally I have run a robust regression analysis on the relationship between goals scored by teams to date in this season’s Premier League and their points tally. For those not familiar with regression analysis, the results of this test basically tell me roughly how many points a team will accumulate for every additional goal they score. The value for goals scored is 0.87 which indicates that for every additional goal a team scores, they would accumulate roughly 0.87 more points. Now obviously a team can’t do this, you can only achieve 0, 1, or 3 points at the end of a game but this is just an analysis to show us the rough relationship between scoring and point accumulation over time.

Now if we take account of the fact that Sheffield United have hit the woodwork twice after nine games and we assume those shots would’ve lead to goals if they were more fortunate, then we could say that if they had the ‘rub of the green’ they would be 1.74 points better off. This still wouldn’t be enough to lift them out of bottom place and in addition to that they are far from the ‘unluckiest’ team in this regard. West Ham have already hit the woodwork eight times. What is interesting to note though is that last season, over the entire 38 games, Sheffield United hit the woodwork just three times, less than any other team in the league. Based on this metric you could consider them the luckiest team in the league last season.

This season however, they are only nine games in and have already hit the woodwork twice. Does this mean that there could be truth to the ‘rub of the green’ saying and that Sheffield are destined to go down because they have stopped being the luckiest team in the league?

By Robbie Butler

Pick up any standard microeconomics textbook for undergraduates and you will meet a chapter explaining the theory of the firm. Readers will be introduced to issues like profit maximisation, marginal revenue, average costs and marginal costs, amongst other things.

Embedded in the theory is an explanation of "shutting down" and "exiting" the market. The former is regarded as temporary closure, while the latter is permanent. Because of this distinction, the short-run decision (shutdown) and long-run decision (to exit the market) differ for the firm. If a firm shuts down, it loses all revenue from the sale of its product, but must still cover all fixed costs. Therefore, the firm will shut down if the revenue it would get from producing is less than its variable costs of production. The firm will only exit the market if total revenue from the sale of its product is less than the total cost of production (all costs).

Sky Sports have a lovely insight to this today thanks to an interview with Tranmere chairman Mark Palios. Football clubs have essentially "shut down" in recent months - with no fans at games. The variable cost of fans (security, light, heat, insurance, health and safety, policing, etc.) have largely disappeared. However, the reopening of stadia will bring these costs back. The fixed costs never left e.g. player salaries.

Palios explains the problem this is for clubs. 
"If you just come down the tiers to 2,000 fans [tier 2], our season tickets are 3,000. So actually cash-wise we are probably worse off because if we have fans in the ground, I know the costs would be about £10,000 to open up. We'd have all the gates open for social distancing, and all the turnstiles on. As a consequence of that, we wouldn't get anymore cash and we'd have to spend £10,000 a match. If it stayed like that, in the context of about a further 18 matches, it's nearly £200,000 of costs. And if you were allowed in 4,000, it's only for the extra 1,000 of general attendance [on top of 3,000 season ticket holders], but we'd still have the costs. It would be pretty minimal, with regards any excess for us."

A lovely illustration of fixed costs, variable costs and total revenue, and the problems facing clubs that rely on match-day income as their primary source of revenue.

By David Butler

The 2020 Nations League group stages concluded this week. The tournament was founded in 2018 and was devised to eliminate the non-competitive friendlies that often faced the ire of European football clubs. It also offered a more balanced competitive format for an international European football competition.

How has balance changed over the two Nations Leagues that have taken place?  One way of considering this is to look at bookmaker odds for the competition. Although the difference in betting odds between a home and away win does not control for draw probabilities, this is a quick and easy way to give some insight into balance.

Controlling for the bookies over-round, the average difference in probabilities for a current Nations League match was 0.31. The median was 0.29.  For the 2018 Nations League there was a higher mean and median (0.37 and 0.35, respectively). To put this in perspective, the mean difference in odds for Euro 2020 match was 0.55 (with a median of 0.57). For those not familiar with the UEFA international qualification groups for the World Cup and Euros, these are notoriously unbalanced. 

On first glance, the competition may have become more balanced. Although the comparison is not perfect - the most recent competition was behind closed doors, a factor which would likely impact odds. 

By Robbie Butler

In August 2018 I wrote a short piece here about the newly formed Nations League. I have to add, more than two years on, I still struggle with the competition structure and what it might mean for future qualification.

In the original piece, I wrote the following: 

"The good news for the minnows is that they not only get to play one another, and therefore have a golden opportunity to register a rare international win, the winner of this group also qualifies for the 2020 European Championships. This poses an obvious question? Is a country better-off targeting a place in Group D rather than Group C? This logic can apply to Group C/B and Group B/A."

As far as I can tell, UEFA qualifying for World Cup 2022 is based on the current standings in the Nations League. Play-off spots will be available to the two highest finishing teams that fail to finish 1st or 2nd in their qualifying groups. This encourages team to win.

What I don't now get is qualification for Euro 2024.

If the same rules hold as for Euro 2020, are Northern Ireland now better off than the Republic of Ireland? The North were relegated to Group C last night, while the Republic survived in Group B with a 0-0 draw at home to Bulgaria. 

It should be noted, neither team will play at Euro 2020, having been in Path B play-offs. Yet Scotland will be there having been seeded in Path C.

My question remains. Is a country better-off targeting a place in Group C rather than Group B?  Surely, losing can't be better than winning. Can it?

By Robbie Butler

England will play the Republic of Ireland later today in an international football match. This a rather rare occurrence and is deserving of a blog post. While England play Ireland regularly (sometimes once a year) in many sports, for example in rugby or cricket, football matches are a far more infrequent.

Since the World Cup in Italy during the summer of 1990 - where the countries played out a 1-1 draw - the nations have met just 5 times. In fact, the countries have played against one another just 16 times (ever) according to the excellent 11v11.com website. 

To put this into context, England have played international football matches against Scotland 114 times, Wales 103 times and Northern Ireland 37 times. There are complex historical, political and social reasons for this - the abandoned game between the two countries in Dublin in 1995 certainly did not help - but the number of games is still very low. 

Following the 1995 abandonment, the countries did not meet again until May 2013, in an international friendly. There has not been a competitive game between the two since March 1991. This is somewhat surprising as the countries were rarely seeded in the same pot in UEFA qualifying competitions between 1992 and 2020. 

What is also worth pointing out is the perfect balance between the nations in recent decades, despite England being almost always ranked higher in the FIFA World Rankings. Excluding the game in 1995, where the Republic of Ireland led 1-0 before it was stopped, the last 5 meetings (from the World Cup in Italy) to the most recent game in June 2015, have all ended in draws. The sequence has been 1-1, 1-1, 1-1, 1-1 and 0-0. Perfect balance.

The last time there was a winner between the two countries was coincidently the first international football match I remember -  Republic of Ireland 1-0 England in Stuttgart at Euro '88.

England have not beaten the Republic of Ireland in more than 35 years - the 26th of March 1985 being the last time. However, with odds of 4/11 for an England win this evening, the bookmakers think this run is about to come to an end tonight. As an Irish man, I can only hope they get this one wrong.

​By Robbie Butler

On Saturday afternoon, as I was watching Crystal Palace play Leeds United, I was struck by a comment from the match commentator that this was the home teams' 8th consecutive season in the Premier League.

Those that are familiar with English football will know that Crystal Palace are somewhat of a yoyo club, and have 5 different spells in the Premier League. That means 4 relegations and 4 promotions (they were in the league in 1992/3 for the first season). Their 8-year stint is by far their longest spell in England's top flight. 

Crystal Palace's current stay in the top flight was thanks to a promotion at the end of the 2012/13 season through the play-offs. The play-offs are for teams that finish the season in places 3/4/5/6 and involve semi-finals (two legs both home and away) and a final at Wembley.

The Championship Play-off Final - which Crystal Palace have incidentally won more than another other club (4 times) - is often referred to as the 'richest game in football' or the 'richest game in the world'. This is because of the enormous revenue streams that can be generated from playing the Premier League through broadcasting, sponsorship, matchday operations and merchandising. 

On the 27th of May 2013, former England and Sunderland striker Kevin Phillips, scored a penalty in added time of first half extra time to beat Watford in the 2013 Playoff Final. Crystal Palace have reaped the rewards since. Each season the clubs stays in the Premier League, the more value this goal become. Phillips, now 47, is long since retired and played his last game in 2014 for Leicester City.

However, there is a more valuable goal. A year before at Wembley West Ham United beat Blackpool in the 2012 Playoff Final.  Portuguese player Ricardo Vaz Tê - currently playing with Portimonense following spells in Turckey and the Chinese Super League scored the winning goal, 3 minutes from time, as West Ham won by two goals to one. 

West Ham have remained in the Premier League ever since. Every club to win the Playoff prior to 2012 have been relegated at least once from the Premier League. Vaz Tê's goal unlocked nine seasons of the Premier League and counting. Just like Kevin Phillips' goal a year later, the longer West Ham and Crystal Palace survive in the English Premier League, the more valuable these individual goals become. 

With the 2020/21 season well underway it seems very likely both clubs will see an 9th and 10th season in the Premier League. By then Phillips will be 48 and Vaz Tê 35. The impact both had on their respective clubs lives on. 

By David Butler

The Premier League recently announced that they, along with their partners Sky Sports and BT, will be "changing direction" and discontinuing their pay-per-view match offering. This is a second attempt of having multiple paywalls; Sky’s Prem Plus lasted from 2001-2007 and was based on a similar model. 

The recent extension was introduced a few months back so that matches typically played during at the 3pm Saturday time slot, and not shown live on TV, could be viewed by fans. Of course, this came at a price – every pay-per-view match cost £14.95 in the UK and €16.95 in Ireland. It wasn’t the case that Sky were charging extra per se, as these matches were in addition to the 140 live matches on the premium channel.

The logic proposed by the EPL seems to be that pay-per-view charges would allow fans of every club to watch their team during the pandemic and raise revenue for clubs in the absence of matchday fan income.

14 matches have been sold via PPV in the UK but now the PPV model is being abandoned. Some casual data tweeted by Joel Minsky suggests that several matches sold poorly. These figures were based on BARB viewing data -which is not the same as buyer data. Newcastle vs. Man Utd had 40 viewers, while Leicester vs. Aston Villa only had 20k. Liverpool vs. Sheffield United sold relatively well, coming in at 110k viewers. Arsenal vs. Leicester registered 140k. Given the size of the Newcastle and Manchester United fan bases, I was surprised by the buy rate – maybe this reflects fans disdain for PPV.

Back-of-the-envelope calculations say that these raised ~4.63m (assuming all viewers paid – which may not be true). This figure might seem reasonable but averaging it over 4 matches, this is lower than what Sky pay per match. However, I don’t know if (or what) Sky are paying for these extra matches. On top of this, there is likely lost advertising revenue from choosing the PPV route and, as can be seen from fans donating the PPV fee to charity, plenty of bad publicity.  

Given that Sky are happy to end the PPV model one would have to infer that it’s not making economic sense. That said, they may have been content with this failing from the start – for a company with savvy marketers, it seems strange that a Monday evening fixture between West Brom and Burnley would be packaged as “box office”....

If I recall correctly, there was plenty of disdain about the PremPlus model in the early 2000’s too. Back then however, there was no method to allow fans successfully coordinate on mass to donate the fee to charity like they have done this time.  

One final thought. Are Sky bailing out at the wrong time? Some of the earliest matches on box office were broadcast when fans could have partook in out-of-home viewing. England and Ireland are now back in lockdown, so the option of the pub is now out.