Score Draw and Soccernomics

Arjun Bali looks at the surprisingly low number of draws in Premiership Football and suggests that the Reds might have challenged more strongly for the title last year had Benitez been more of an economist!

The fall in the number of draws in the Premier League this season has been extraordinary. It is normal for just over 25% of these matches to end in a draw. As of Saturday morning, a fifth of the way into the season, only 6% of games had been drawn.

This decline in draws is partly due to the growing wealth gap in the league. Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal are much richer and stronger than the other clubs and so are well placed to beat them easily. None of these five had drawn a match yet this season until Saturday, when Manchester United drew with Sunderland. A startling statistic demonstrates this wealth gap: the Premier League is averaging 2.97 goals per game, as big teams with pricey strikers are crushing smaller ones regularly.

The decline in draws can be more fully explained by the entry of economists and statisticians into football.

Since 1981, clubs get 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw, rather than 2 for a win and 1 for a tie. This has increased the incentive for a team playing with 20 minutes remaining to take risks and play to win. The Maths makes sense: if risks are taken in 3 games which are being drawn with time to go, winning, drawing and losing one game would bring 4 points. This is more than the 3 points that would have been gained by holding out for 3 draws. The strategy is viable if a team feels that it can convert at least one of the draws into a win.

Liverpool would have done well to follow this strategy last season. They only lost 2 games, but they drew 11. Had they won 5, drawn 1 and lost the remaining 5, they would have finished ahead of Manchester United and won the title. Had Rafael Benitez been an economist, he would have been more aggressive in the later stages of last season’s Premier League matches.

The football economy website provides a wealth of comment on the fascinating economics of the national game.

One of the top sports economists is Stefan Szymanski, Professor of Economics at Cass Business School.

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