By Robbie Butler

Almost 5 years about I wrote a piece on this blog called "The Difficult Job of Management". The piece plotted the relationship through time between the appointment of each Premier League manager (more than 240 different men) and the number of days in charge.

From 2006 to 2016 the average length of stay for a Premier League manager was just over 400 days. Two weeks ago Liverpool's Jurgen Klopp broke the 2,000-days barrier. One year earlier, now departed Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino, just about managed the same feat only to be sacked on day 2,002. Both managers, particularly Klopp who could reach 3,000 days in charge (maybe further), very much buck the trend today. One has to go back to 2006 (Mick McCarthy at Wolves) to find a manager than lasted 2,000 or more days since appointment.

And despite, regular periods where his appointment has been question, Ole Gunnar Solskjær is now just 84 days shy of Jose Mourinho's 927 days at Manchester United. Should he reach 928 days, he will be the longest serving United manager since Sir Alex. I think all would agree the chances of Ole reaching Sir Alex's 9,704 days in charge are effectively zero. The game has changed too much since 1986.

And speaking of 1986, and Sir Alex's appointment, the Scot went 1,288 days from his appointment as United manager to the FA Cup replay win over Crystal Palace at Wembley in May 1990. Should United not win the Europa League this season, Ole will be in Ferguson territory (1000+ days) as he searches for his first piece of silverware. Quite remarkable in today's game when most managers get 400 days or less.

"By Robbie Butler

We were delighted to learn last week of the acceptance of our paper "The Evolution of the Football Jersey - An Institutional Perspective" in the Journal of Institutional Economics. 

This paper explores the interaction of informal constraints on human behaviour by examining the evolution of English football jerseys. The jersey provides an excellent setting to demonstrate how informal constraints emerge from formal rules and shape human behaviour. Customs, approved norms and habits are all observed in this setting.

The commercialisation of football in recent decades has resulted in these informal constraints, in many cases dating back over a century, co-existing with branding, goodwill and identity effects. Combined these motivate clubs to maintain the status quo. As a result, club colours have remained remarkably resilient within a frequently changing landscape.

​The paper is currently going through the production process but should be available online in the coming weeks, and will appear later in the year in the journal.

By John Considine

Richard Thaler devotes Chapter 29 of Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics to (American) Football.  Most of the chapter is devoted to illustrating how early round draft picks subsequently underperform and/or are overcompensated.  Thaler is also critical of giving away future draft picks.  It is part of Thaler’s case against presumptions about the efficiency of decision making.
 
I was reminded of Thaler’s work by developments in recent weeks.  The trade that exchanged Jared Goff for Matthew Stafford involved the Rams giving up draft picks.  Does this illustrate the benefits from trade or the pull of instant gratification?  It should be noted that some commentators suggest that giving up first round draft picks can help teams avoid criticism like the Bears got for their drafting of Mitchell Trubisky before Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson.
 
Thaler’s work draws attention to decision making errors.  One could argue that he was forced to over emphasise this aspect to get a hearing in economics where the default is to assume that human decision making is correct (or self-correcting).  Again, recent developments are worth considering.  Dak Prescott’s new deal with the Cowboys can be interpreted in a variety of ways.  Some suggest he is now being overcompensated because he was undercompensated previously.  A sort of market correction.  Others suggest that Jerry Jones made an error by not doing a deal with Dak earlier.
 
Dak himself spun a different story.  Dak saw his new deal as helping other players by raising the bar for all players looking to negotiate a new deal.  He has a point.  But he may damage his team’s ability to hire - especially in a year where the salary cap is coming down.  Some might say that Dak is not making the “rational choice” that Tom Brady has previously made.  In The Importance of Small Decisions Brady’s structuring of his deals in New England was presented as being aligned with the economist’s idea of rational choice (here is a previous blog on this point).  I wonder if that example overplays the success of Brady’s decision making in a way that Thaler may overplay the errors in the draft.

If The Importance of Small Decisions makes it to a second edition then I guess that Brady’s decision to move to Tampa will be included.  Another ring followed that decision.  (How might it view Brady's decision to engage in practice with teammates that possible broke coronavirus restrictions?)

Few economists claim that the rational choice model explains every aspect of decision making.  Most think it is a very useful framework.  If it explained all choices then why would we have to include the "rational" part.  Rational choice was one of four quadrants in The Importance of Small Decisions.  Thaler tends to place it within one of two systems of decision making.  These two systems are roughly captured by the title of a book by Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow.  These systems are also present in Thaler's co-authored Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.  In these publications, one system is slow, conscious, and deliberative (not inconsistent with rational choice).  The other system is fast, intuitive, and automatic.  Many decision making errors are attributed to this second system.  Kahneman allows that experts make less of these errors but he is careful to circumscribe the circumstances where this applies (see here).  The default emphasis of Thaler and Kahneman is on the errors in human decision making.

The Importance of Small Decisions uses Tom Brady as the poster boy for rational choice.  I have not come across Kahneman or Thaler using Tom Brady to illustrate to successes of human decision making.  It is hard to imagine.  One of Thaler's favourite characters is Homer Simpson (he complains that rational choice uses characters like Star Trek's Mr Spock).  We need to look outside of economics to find Brady playing a similar role for fast, intuitive, automatic decision making.  In Game Changer: The Art of Sports Science Fergus Connolly takes four pages to describe 2.3 seconds of Tom Brady’s decision making in a Super Bowl.  Four pages for 2.3 seconds.  Connolly is slow and deliberative in describing a decision making process that is fast and instinctive.  Connolly talks about inputs being transformed into actions in “auto pilot mode” and without some of the inputs making it “all the way to his brain”.  An expert decision maker in action.

When it comes to decision making in economics, and in sport, too often we over emphasise either the successes or failures of decision making.  It is the mixture that makes it interesting.

By David Butler

Almost a year ago, I wrote about Ireland’s ELO rating* since June 1988 and Stephen Kenny’s job to reverse the slowly declining trend. The opposite has occurred since last March. The loss to Luxembourg last weekend meant that the senior team recorded their lowest ELO rank in over thirty years. 

*the ELO rating system is adapted from chess and scores soccer teams based on performance. Among a range of factors, points are awarded based on the type of match played (qualifier/friendly etc.), home advantage, opponent quality, goal difference and expected results. 

By Robbie Butler

One year is a long time in football. The last year has felt like the longest ever. As the Republic of Ireland go in search of their first win under Stephen Kenny (in their 11th game of asking), it seems a long time ago since the team's last win - November 2019 versus New Zealand under Mick McCarthy..

There are undoubtedly a combination of factors that have made the past twelve months extremely challenging. Empty stadiums, travel restrictions, Covid withdraws, the list goes on. For me, the most worrying aspect of the team's performances is the contrast between McCarthy's second reign and that of the current manager. 

McCarthy's second spell in charge lasted 10 games, the same as Kenny to this point. He's record W5 D4 L1 GD+6. This includes competitive and friendly games but would result in 19 points under normal circumstances. In fact, this record is bettered by only one of the last 10 Irish managers (back to John Giles) for the first 10 games - Brian Kerr (21 points).

Of course, the counter argument to this is that the new manager is attempting something revolutionary and changing the "way we play". I have moved to John Maynard Keynes school of thought when those in favour of this now argue it is a long run project. "In the long run, we are all dead".

By David Butler
​
Now that the dust has settled on the Cheltenham Festival 2021, we can reflect on the performance of the tipsters last week. The chart below shows the performance (profit/loss) of the traditional newspapers and recognised online tipping sources who made regular predictions.

Non-runner predictions were excluded and a hypothetical stake of €10 (€5 each-way) was placed on the starting price of each horse predicted to win.

If a punter was to follow the tips from the Scottish newspaper The Daily Record they would have returned a profit of €305.44 over the four days. This profit was driven by their excellent performance on Wednesday and Thursday (in particular, tipping Put the Kettle On at 17/2, Sky Pirate at 14/1 and Flooring Porter at 12/1). The Sun finished second - with profits heavily reliant on tipping Belfast Banter at 33/1.

Five of the tipsters made profits on both win and each-way bets. From the tips offered on horseracing.net only Spotlight made both win (€181.47) and each-way profits (€123.86).

By Robbie Butler

The Football Association of Ireland are currently seeking to recruit a Insights/Research Manager. 

The Insights Manager would be primarily responsible for collecting, researching and interpreting data, and articulating insights that drive the Association's objectives. 

The successful candidate will be expected to provide research and insights support across the Commercial Partnerships, Sales and Ticket Operations and will play a crucial role in measuring and valuing our sponsorships.

Closing date for receipt of applications is close of business on 16/04/2021.

​Further details on this position can be found here.

By Robbie Butler

A football title for a horse racing post that will follow. But these are the iconic words of Irish jump racing handicapper Andrew 'Sandy' Shaw when asked why, after 4 days of racing at the 2021 Cheltenham Festival, the score for the week read Great Britain 5 - Ireland 23.

Shaw continued "Back in the 80s, in the bad days as such when we were lucky to come out with one winner, it used to be the other way around. We didn't win any handicaps over there but it's turned on its head now and I think that's one of the main reasons – we just have the best horses. It's a bit like the Premier League versus the Championship. It's a great tribute to Horse Racing Ireland and the programming committees that are there. We have the races in place to encourage people to come over; prize-money makes such a big difference as well. Sporting John's Grade 1 win in the Scilly Isles Novices' Chase was worth £20,000 to the winner and that would probably be €50,000 or €60,000 here. I think it's a straightforward situation, it's all about the economics. The money is here and the best horses are here, that's why we're so successful." (The full piece can be found here.)

There you have it. "It's all about the economics".

Our blog addressrd this on several occasions in the past. This link here from 2019 looks the the difference in prizemoney at both Dundalk (Ireland) and Lingfield (Great Britain). This here is a similar story from 2014. And this here is from 2013 and compares Ballinrobe to 4 other Britisj racecourses

Finally, this link here, plots the success of Irish horses at the Cheltenham Festival and Irish government support of Horse Racing Ireland. The piece is from 2013 and the Irish success has increased since. Our soon to be published book, Advances in Sports Economics, has a chapter dedicated to this.

By John Considine

As a child I would very occasionally watch sport broadcasts with my grandfather.  Sometimes, on our national holiday (March 17th), we would watch the Railway Cup games.  A Munster versus Leinster game would pit us against each other.  He was only mildly interested in gaelic games and would sometimes rest his eyes during these games.  That would not happen during the rare occasions that there was a horse race broadcast on TV.  His interest might be heightened by a small bet on the given race but the bet was a minor consideration.

His gambling was woven into his day.  A weekday in his early retirement years would see this 66-year-old cycle three miles to the nearest town to buy a newspaper.  The Irish Press would be brought back home and read over breakfast.  The racing pages would be studied in great detail.  It would begin by an examination of the previous day’s results so as to confirm how badly some of his choices had performed.  Then it was on to selecting that day’s runners.  Later in the morning he would again mount the bicycle and cycle back into town to place his bet.  Another six mile round trip to place a bet that would be denominated in pennies.  Twelve miles cycling before lunch to engage in a pastime.

The financial losses were tiny and they had no impact on my grandmother or the fourteen children they reared.  Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky.  The damage that gambling can do is one of the reasons that the UK government is considering regulations to limit the links between sport and gambling.  It could mean that betting enterprises are no longer able to advertise on the jerseys of Premier League teams.  Understandably, sports organisations are worried about the potential loss of a revenue source.

A few months ago I heard about the proposal and I started to look for the advertising in sports broadcasts – mainly Premier League games.  However, it was not long before I lost interest in the gambling firms and became fixated with the number of tyre companies advertising on Premier League jerseys and around Premier League grounds.  Nexen and Yokohama can be found on the shirts of two of the top-4 teams.  On the advertising hoarding you will find Apollo and Tomket at a number of grounds (and frequently advertised in the same ground).  Kuhmo is another brand.  Davanti advertise prominently behind the Italian manager on Merseyside.

It seemed to me that Hankook had some sponsorship deal linked to the Europa League.  However, I noticed that it was a different tyre that appeared on the hoarding in the San Siro when AC Milan hosted Manchester United.  When Inter play in the San Siro then it is Pirelli that dominates.

As a more traditional economist, my default position is that the advertisers know what they are doing (while accepting that this may not be the case).  I presume they have examined the audience figures and determined that this is an efficient use of advertising funds.  But I’m struggling to imagine how my grandfather’s betting on horses, and his choice of bicycle tyres, would have changed if he was exposed to the current level of advertising.

Wishing all our readers a very happy St. Patrick's Day from Ireland.