By Daragh O'Leary
Few issues matter more in sport or economics than competitive balance. It shapes spectator interest, broadcasting value, and ultimately the legitimacy of competitions. Unsurprisingly, it has become a major talking point in hurling over recent weeks following Offaly and Dublin’s heavy defeats to Cork and Clare respectively.
Naturally, conversations of concern have sprouted among pundits, mostly Leinster and Ulster-based ones, on national media platforms like Off the Ball and the Irish Independent about the gulf in quality between provincial championships in hurling. Thankfully, these pundits were quick to point out that all hurling needs to do is take a look at Gaelic football to see how radical changes can help hurling fix itself. This does however beg the question of what exactly hurling need to take from the competitive structure of Gaelic football?
I have written previously on the topic of geographic variations relating to the level of interest which exists within Ireland for hurling and football – see here. Broadly speaking, hurling is more popular in the South with the exception of Kerry, whereas football is more popular in the North with the exception of Antrim. This is demonstrated in the below maps which show the outright betting odds for this year’s All-Ireland Hurling (left) and Football (right) Championships.
Few issues matter more in sport or economics than competitive balance. It shapes spectator interest, broadcasting value, and ultimately the legitimacy of competitions. Unsurprisingly, it has become a major talking point in hurling over recent weeks following Offaly and Dublin’s heavy defeats to Cork and Clare respectively.
Naturally, conversations of concern have sprouted among pundits, mostly Leinster and Ulster-based ones, on national media platforms like Off the Ball and the Irish Independent about the gulf in quality between provincial championships in hurling. Thankfully, these pundits were quick to point out that all hurling needs to do is take a look at Gaelic football to see how radical changes can help hurling fix itself. This does however beg the question of what exactly hurling need to take from the competitive structure of Gaelic football?
I have written previously on the topic of geographic variations relating to the level of interest which exists within Ireland for hurling and football – see here. Broadly speaking, hurling is more popular in the South with the exception of Kerry, whereas football is more popular in the North with the exception of Antrim. This is demonstrated in the below maps which show the outright betting odds for this year’s All-Ireland Hurling (left) and Football (right) Championships.
While there is clearly better representation from counties within Munster in hurling and better representation from counties from outside of Munster in football, there appears to be no major difference in the competitive balance between the favourites and the chasing teams in the two sports. Meaning the “issue” hurling has is one of geographical concentration rather than competitive imbalance. These are completely different topics.
Of hurling’s semi-finalists, Limerick are the favourites at a price of 8/13, ensuring a return of roughly €0.62 for every €1 bet. The Cork hurlers follow behind in second at 15/8 and then you have Galway and Clare at 8/1 and 10/1 respectively.
Football on the other hand has a far clearer favourite with Kerry being priced at just 4/7 ensuring only a €0.57 return for every €1 bet. Meanwhile the second favourite, Dublin, are priced at 7/2 ensuring a €3.50 return on every €1 bet, a whole +€1.62 more than the second favourite in hurling. Mayo and Louth make up the remaining teams priced at 4/1 and 12/1 respectively. What benefit is this greater geographical spread of football when it has lower competitive balance between first and second?
Overall, the mean betting odds for each of the last four remaining teams in hurling is 5.12, whereas the football is 5.02. The mean difference in betting odds for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th favourite in hurling compared to the favourite is 6.01 compared to football’s 5.93. In short, talk of football achieving some kind of superior balanced competitive structure which hurling needs to learn from doesn’t seem to stack up to the evidence despite football’s final four being more spread out geographically.
Maybe then it is the competition within the provincial championships which matters. But again, it seems slightly disingenuous to suggest football triumphs in this regard. Kerry have won 24 of the last 30 Munster Football Championships, Dublin have won 20 of the last 30 Leinster Championships, and Galway & Mayo have won 23 of the last 30 Connaught Football Championships. Yet we hear no calls for the Ulster Football Championship to be broken up to ‘fix’ football.
In comparison, Kilkenny have won 22 of the last 30 Leinster Hurling Championships, which is comparable to Dublin’s dominance in Leinster’s Football Championship (20/30), while Limerick have won just 8 of the previous 30 Munster Hurling Championships.
It will be interesting to see how evenly contested the finals of hurling and football are this year and what kind of discussion we get afterwards about overall competitive balance. Kerry being, by far, the clear favourites to win this year’s All-Ireland in football after their recent dismantling of Tyrone and Armagh doesn’t seem to generate quite the same level of concern as Munster team’s performances against Leinster counties in hurling.
The recommendation to solve this imbalance in football seems to be that we should simply sit back and marvel at David Clifford rather than contemplate structural overhauls to the All-Ireland Football Championship. Meanwhile the much closer contest between hurling’s top two teams seems to be a cause for concern for Leinster-based pundits unhappy with their own province’s level of quality. I can’t help but wonder whether we would be having this conversation at all if Kilkenny had not had such a poor year.
I will finish with what I believe to be a fitting line from Cork hurler, Darragh Fitzgibbon; ‘Don't break Munster while fixing hurling’.
Of hurling’s semi-finalists, Limerick are the favourites at a price of 8/13, ensuring a return of roughly €0.62 for every €1 bet. The Cork hurlers follow behind in second at 15/8 and then you have Galway and Clare at 8/1 and 10/1 respectively.
Football on the other hand has a far clearer favourite with Kerry being priced at just 4/7 ensuring only a €0.57 return for every €1 bet. Meanwhile the second favourite, Dublin, are priced at 7/2 ensuring a €3.50 return on every €1 bet, a whole +€1.62 more than the second favourite in hurling. Mayo and Louth make up the remaining teams priced at 4/1 and 12/1 respectively. What benefit is this greater geographical spread of football when it has lower competitive balance between first and second?
Overall, the mean betting odds for each of the last four remaining teams in hurling is 5.12, whereas the football is 5.02. The mean difference in betting odds for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th favourite in hurling compared to the favourite is 6.01 compared to football’s 5.93. In short, talk of football achieving some kind of superior balanced competitive structure which hurling needs to learn from doesn’t seem to stack up to the evidence despite football’s final four being more spread out geographically.
Maybe then it is the competition within the provincial championships which matters. But again, it seems slightly disingenuous to suggest football triumphs in this regard. Kerry have won 24 of the last 30 Munster Football Championships, Dublin have won 20 of the last 30 Leinster Championships, and Galway & Mayo have won 23 of the last 30 Connaught Football Championships. Yet we hear no calls for the Ulster Football Championship to be broken up to ‘fix’ football.
In comparison, Kilkenny have won 22 of the last 30 Leinster Hurling Championships, which is comparable to Dublin’s dominance in Leinster’s Football Championship (20/30), while Limerick have won just 8 of the previous 30 Munster Hurling Championships.
It will be interesting to see how evenly contested the finals of hurling and football are this year and what kind of discussion we get afterwards about overall competitive balance. Kerry being, by far, the clear favourites to win this year’s All-Ireland in football after their recent dismantling of Tyrone and Armagh doesn’t seem to generate quite the same level of concern as Munster team’s performances against Leinster counties in hurling.
The recommendation to solve this imbalance in football seems to be that we should simply sit back and marvel at David Clifford rather than contemplate structural overhauls to the All-Ireland Football Championship. Meanwhile the much closer contest between hurling’s top two teams seems to be a cause for concern for Leinster-based pundits unhappy with their own province’s level of quality. I can’t help but wonder whether we would be having this conversation at all if Kilkenny had not had such a poor year.
I will finish with what I believe to be a fitting line from Cork hurler, Darragh Fitzgibbon; ‘Don't break Munster while fixing hurling’.
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