By David Butler

​The Cork City Marathon took place today. The male winner was Philip Harty with a time of 02.32.58. The female winner was Nollaigh O’Neill with a time of 3.00.40.

As always, Seamus Coffey (UCC) organised our relay team entry.  ‘Random Walk’ finished 93rd out of 689 relay teams (inclusive of youth and mixed gender teams) with a time of 3.40.40 – we were relatively surprised by this! The winning relay time was 2.24.00. Our relay team included contributors to this website; Robbie Butler, John Eakins, Sean O’Connor and Myself (All UCC). Brendan McElroy (UCC) was the fifth member of our team.

From what I’m told this is the best time Random Walk has recorded over the years. The distribution of finishing times for the 2016 relay race is below. 

By David Butler

According to Met Éireann, the Irish Meteorological Service, it rains in Ireland approximately 150 days a year along the east and south east coasts, to about 225 days a year in parts of the west of Ireland.  Inclement conditions makes it hard for those living here to exercise outdoors from September to March. Playing surfaces commonly flood in the winter months. Even if the wet conditions don’t stop you, bad weather often makes for more of an unpleasant experience.  I often wonder whether we might be a fitter nation in the summer months owing to our climate?

Now that April has arrived the uptake of one super public health initiative will likely get going again - organised road running. This usually comes in the format of races, usually between 3km and 10km. There seems to be an increase in the frequency of these events over the past decade. Many races serve the function of fundraisers for sporting clubs and often a proportion of the proceeds are given to charity. In Munster these events are usually located in rural areas or suburban towns.  I would guess that the same is probably true for much of the country given the economics of organising these races. Locating a race outside of major urban areas probably ensures lower organisation costs.  The Irish times estimated the cost of holding a race in Dublin some time ago, something which is expensive given the price of road closures and policing.  

The personal costs of taking part in these events are low, the only sporting equipment needed is relatively suitable footwear. The entry fee is approximately €10. Importantly, the races are inclusive, accommodating all runners from serious athletes to amateurs and even children that just want to run for fun. Given the health benefits and positive externalities (a great community spirit materialises), these events may warrant support or subsidies from local councils. 

Below is the number of road roads, fun runs, trail races and mountain races taking place in the counties of Munster between April and August. I gathered these from numerous blogs and websites online. Cork leads the way.  I could find 126 events in total.  

By Paul O'Sullivan

It was announced last month (see here and here) that Ireland, specifically the Dublin-Wicklow region, will host an Ironman 70.3 (half a full Ironman) in August 2015, with the possibility of a full Ironman taking place in 2016. With the huge increase in participation in triathlons, duathlons, cycling and adventure races in Ireland over the last few years, such an event is likely to attract many Irish and non-Irish participants and fans.

As usual, various commentators have been quick to point out the huge benefits, particularly increased visitor spending and increased exposure as a tourism destination, that hosting such an event (Ironman 70.3) will have for the country. In this article, Oisin Quinn, Lord Mayor of Dublin, is quoted as saying that “.. the event will attract a flood of participants from around the world.” Quinn is also quoted as saying that "Triathletes usually come for two or three bed nights and bring two or three supporters with them, so that will have a direct boost to the local economy," he added.” 
 
According to the same article “The event is expected to attract up to 3,000 competitors and 20pc of entries will be reserved for foreign athletes.” As well as this, “Event organisers say the economic value of hosting this much sought-after event could be as much as €18.7m in direct spending into the local economy, as well as substantial benefit from worldwide TV coverage.” It is not clear how this figure has been arrived at. An attempt to elicit this information from the Ironman organisation has not been successful. 

As with most claims by supporters of hosting such events, there is some element of truth in their claims. There will undoubtedly be participants, with family/friends/coaches in tow, from outside of Ireland, each spending money in  Ireland that would not be spent here in the absence of the triathlon taking place. As ever, though, measuring such gross effects is not the correct way to measure the contribution of such an event. What really matters is the net effect, i.e. the contribution of the event net of what would have happened if the event did not take place.

Similar to a point made in a previous post by Robbie Butler in relation to the Irish Open golf (see here), the effects of the triathlon are likely to be mostly a substitution effect at national level. While the‘local’ economy of Dublin/Wicklow may benefit, this will likely be at the expense of other areas of the country.

Given the time of year, it is also possible that a ‘crowding-out’ effect may occur as triathlon visitors compete with ‘normal’ tourists for flights and hotel rooms so that the‘net’ tourism effect may be lower than expected.

With regard to the idea that TV coverage will act as a showcase that will increase tourism in the future, the implication of that idea is that there are many potential tourists who have never heard of, or have never had any intention of ever coming to Ireland, but will come here solely after watching TV coverage of the Dublin triathlon. I cannot imagine that that effect will be very large.

By Robbie Butler

On the June back holiday weekend I yet again endeavoured to complete a leg of the Cork City Marathon relay. This has become somewhat of an annual event in our School and with the help of four colleagues (including fellow sporteconomics.org contributors Declan Jordan and John Eakins) we set about running through the streets of Cork city. 

Reconstituted in 2007 (the race was run from 1982 – 1986), the marathon is one of the best spectacles you will see throughout the year on the banks of the River Lee. The sense of community spirit is palpable with competitors and spectators alike encouraging those that seek to complete the course, be it 26.2m (full marathon), 13.1 miles (half marathon) or 5+ miles (relay). What’s more, the race brings together all sorts of athletes, from those seeking to win the races, to those just happy to complete a leg of the course, even firemen attempting to break world records! 
 
It was during my 5.2miles of the race that my mind began to wander and I started to think about the the race from a public health perspective. Surely no other event in the Cork calendar has more of a positive impact on both physical and mental health. Athletes training for both full and half marathons are advised to start training around the New Year. By the time the June bank holiday arrives they have spent many hours, running hundreds of kilometres of both city and rural Ireland (in most cases!). Us relay runners however spend much less time out and about but still need to train in the weeks before the race. The cost associated with hosting the race is minimal. Most of the infrastructure is in place already. Some hosting costs (barriers, extra Gardí, etc.) are required but most is covered mainly by the cost of entry into the race. 

€737,000,000 was allocated to Mental Health Services in Ireland under Vote 39 of the 2014 Revised Estimates (Health Service Executive). I doubt any of this allocation goes towards planning or staging the Cork City marathon. Despite this, the race is surely one of the best value for money initiatives in the region at promoting and maintaining mental health. The good news too is that the race is growing in popularity. The table below presents data on the reconstituted race since 2007. Given relay teams and repeat competitors it’s very hard to know exactly how many individuals have run in the race since 2007 but one can estimate that approximately 50,000 entrants have run through the street of Cork city.  

The great news is that the race is becoming increasingly popular. The half marathon looks like a great addition to race day and could surpass 2,000 entries next year. As for us, our team 'Random Walk' completed the race in 3hrs 57mins 19secs (210th of 617). That's 16mins plus slower than a man running it on his own in full fire-fighter gear (including steel toe-capped boots!!). We need to train much harder for next year.

By Eoin Whyte

The ‘Rooney rule’ was adopted in 2003 and established a set of guidelines for all NFL teams in their selection process for head coaching and senior football operation jobs. Under the new rules all NFL teams are now required to interview people considered to be of an ethnic minority when making an appointment for any of the sport’s top coaching positions. The rule has made a significant impact on the number of African American head coaches in the NFL. In 2002, the year prior to the adoption of the Rooney rule, there were only 2 African American head coaches employed in the NFL. Four years later this number had increased to 7. 

Madden and Ruther (2011) argues that this increase illustrates that there had been discriminatory influences in the previous selection process of new coaches in the NFL. According to Madden & Ruther, discrimination occurs “when the marginal or last African American coach hired must be better than the marginal white coach”. Table 1 below, from Madden & Ruther (2011), details how, prior to introduction of the Rooney Rule, there was a significant discrepancy in the number of African American coaches to white coaches in the NFL. The table also highlights how, prior to the rule, African American coaches enjoyed a significantly higher win rate averaging 9.1 wins a season versus 8.0 of their white counterparts. Sixty-nine percent of African American coaches got their respective teams to the play offs versus thirty-nine percent of all other coaches. Since the Rooney rule however, these discrepancies has evened out and the win rate of African American coaches has decreased.

The Madden & Ruther paper comes to mind when examining the Irish data for International Carding Scheme funding between 2008 and 2014.  It is interesting to note that there are  discrepancies in the funding between males and females in Athletics, Boxing, Cycling and Swimming, what I label the ABC’s of Irish sports.

The first chart below highlights that more male athletes have received funding than their female counterparts in all of their respective sports under ICS funding between the  discussed years. 65 males were funded in Irish athletics versus 64 female athletes. 79 male boxers were funded versus the mere 3 female recipients. 42 male cyclists were funded as opposed to the 10 female counterparts. And 36 male swimmers were granted funding in comparison to 27 female swimmers.

However on average, female athletes have been granted more funding than their male counterparts. The second chart illustrates how female boxers on average received over 3 times more funding than male boxers. In athletics, on average females enjoy 16% more funding than male athletes. Cycling has a 21% difference in the average funding for male and female athletes in favour of female athletes. While the average funded female swimmer also earns 53% more than the average male swimmer.

Of course is it is easy to recognise these figures being possibly distorted by the success of Irish female athletes such as Taylor (Boxing), Murphy (Swimming), O'Rourke and Loughnane (Athletics), all of whom are amongst the higher funded recipients.

However, these differences still pose some questions.  Akin to the African American coaches’ previous higher success rate in the NFL, do Irish female athletes receive more funding versus their male counterparts only because they have to be exceptional in their respective sport to receive funding in the first place?  Or, are females athletes funded to a higher level in an attempt to encourage more females into sport?  It is hard to say. It requires further investigation.

By Eoin Whyte, University of Limerick