Are English Premier League Teams Paid Like Bureaucrats? An Incentive Analysis of Monetary Match Importance*

Jeffrey Cisyk, Pascal Courty and Amin Kouhbor

Journal of Sports Economics, 2025, vol. 26, issue 7, 783-815

Abstract: Teams playing in the top English football league—English Premier League—face three types of financial incentives: rank-based prize money, qualification to European competitions, and relegation. For each type of incentive, we compute the monetary importance of each match for each team. A team's monetary match importance (MMI) is the difference between the team's expected award in the event it wins versus loses the match. We find that strong EPL teams have low average MMI relative to other teams. They are paid like bureaucrats as they face no risk of relegation, yet still receive a large and guaranteed award. We also show that total EPL MMI could be greatly increased by having a league with competitive balance.

Keywords: monetary match importance; game importance; monetary incentive; EPL; rank-based awards contest design; competitive balance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D86 J33 Z21 Z28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jospec:v:26:y:2025:i:7:p:783-815

DOI: 10.1177/15270025251348181

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