Soccer on Grass

OK, I have soccer on the brain after the Arsenal's magnificent 6-1 season opening victory at Everton ... on grass.

Which brings me yet again to the possibility that PGE Park as a soccer specific stadium might stick with turf because, well, the climate might not be too suitable for it.

Rubbish. Oregon's climate during the MLS season is perfectly suitable for a natural grass playing field. English professional soccer is played exclusively on grass throughout the extraordinarily wet and gray English winter, and most English stadiums host many more games than the typical MLS season.

In addition, the game is much better on grass, particularly for spectators. Even modern turf, while much better than the old stuff, causes the ball to bounce too high, roll too fast and the game quickly becomes more like ping pong than top quality soccer. Players are reluctant to tackle and so the game looses its element of physicality that makes it compelling to watch. I, for one, plan to attend many games if a grass field in installed, but will be only an occasional patron if they don't. I don't think I am alone.

Evidence that success in Toronto and Seattle with turf fields is meaningless - once the thrill of a new team wears off, a quality product on the field will keep fans returning year after year. The success of the team concerns both the owners of the team and the city, which has a financial interest in the success of the franchise and the number of people they are able to draw to the stadium.

Not having natural grass jeopardizes the team's chances of hosting national team matches and top European clubs, most of which refuse to play on turf. Temporary installations of grass for this purpose are incredibly expensive (reports of $100,000 for the one use field recently installed in Seattle) and of poor quality making the game even worse to watch and probably ruling it out as a surface for a national team match that matters. As these games are huge draws and important for stadium revenue, this is an important consideration.

Besides, grass may cost more to maintain, but additional groundskeeping staff is in keeping with the idea that and MLS PGE Park will provide employment and economic stimulus. (okay, I have pushed it too far, perhaps?)

Finally, this is Oregon, grass-seed capital of the world and a place that thrives on being an outdoor paradise for visitors. Not having grass because of the climate goes against this heritage and image and further reinforces the stereotype that Oregon is always rainy which is detrimental to tourism.

The fact that PSU plays about five football games at PGE park does make the task of maintaining a top quality field for soccer more difficult, but not impossible. A number of MLS soccer specific stadiums host football and many of the games will be played after the end of the MLS season. Modern grass fields with top quality drainage systems and synthetic fibers sewn in to keep the turf in place can withstand both weather and wear much better than in the past. English soccer stadiums often host rugby matches which are equally rough on the field.

For these reasons I hope the Timbers soccer team to install a natural grass field, but the Portland City Council should insist on natural grass at PGE Park as it has a real interest in the success of the team. Or it should do it for me....

Speaking of success and the Timbers, it looks like they may be finding a little offense to go with their fantastic defense: A great result at Rochester this weekend.

Soccernomics: Grass - or Not

I have blogged a few times about my desire to see soccer played on natural grass.  I have lamented the decision by Merritt Paulson to install artifical grass at PGE Park.  And I have argued that the new modern natural grass field technology works pretty well in controlling moisture.

But I have to say that this is about as clear and direct an explanation as you could wish for, and I find it convincing.  This is from a Timbers Q&A with Merritt Paulson:

This is very simple. If we could have a quality grass field, we would. We cannot. PGE Park is below grade and only a small fraction of the field, especially after our new configuration, receives direct sunlight. That fact in and of itself makes PGE Park a unique challenge for grass even without the weather in the Pacific Northwest. In addition, add training needs (although we will provide a grass training complex for the team) to our fall high school and PSU football games that we will host, to our weather and you have an equation that simply does not work. Imagine an October soccer game, when the grass no longer grows in Portland, the day after a football game on grass. No way to get rid of football lines and an awful surface. Our organization has looked at this long and hard and will continue to look at it as technology advances. Turf is much better quality today than it was 5 years ago, and we will look at a product that favors soccer. Additionally, we will likely have our own custom grass cut-outs for exhibitions when necessary.

Let's hope that field turf comes up with a modified, soccer-specific, product soon. I think that the main adjustment would be to have slightly longer blades of fake grass to prevent the ball from bouncing too much and to slow the momentum of a rolling ball.  But still, soccer played mostly without tackles is just not the same.

Real Soccer Stadiums Have Grass Surfaces

The New York Times' Goal blog has the this story on the installation of the natural grass field at the Red Bull Arena in Harrison, NJ, future home of the MLS New York Red Bulls.

How can they possibly make it work in such a climate?!? They are installing a SubAir system that helps control the moisture in the turf and can keep it warm as well in freezing temperatures. It is what the Broncos use in Denver and has been installed in the beautiful grass fields at the new MLS stadiums in Salt Lake, Denver and Chicago (as well as in Bolton in England). The system actually uses vacuum pressure to help keep moisture down in periods of heavy rain.

From the blog post:

On Wednesday, only hours before the Red Bulls lost their 27th straight road game in Major League Soccer, the first pieces of the grass playing surface, Kentucky bluegrass, were rolled out at the team’s new $200 million stadium — Red Bull Arena — in Harrison, N.J.

The balance of the turf will be placed over the next week in preparation for the stadium’s debut when the Red Bulls play Chicago on March 27, 2010, to open the new season. The grass is only one component of what the club is calling a “cutting-edge underground field drainage and turf-heating system” that uses the SubAir System.

According to the club’s news release: “The SubAir System applies vacuum pressure to accelerate the speed at which moisture moves from the playing surface through the soil system. At the same time, the system can apply pressure through the subsoil pipes to stimulate moisture movement through the soil during particularly dry periods, as well as regulate the core temperature of the soil throughout the year to help stimulate grass growth.”

The stadium, across the Passaic River from the Ironbound section of Newark, is inching toward completion. Only 13 panels remain to be installed on the signature, silver-toned translucent panels that will allow natural light to pass through into the bowl. When finished, the roof will cover the stadium’s entire seating area.

Now if teams in places like Utah and Colorado and Illinois which can get cold and have tremendous rain and hail storms, can get natural grass to work out just fine, surely the relatively mild Portland climate poses no real obstacle.

There seems to be a sense that the only technological innovation in athletic fields has been in artificial turf, making them the only real choice for most applications, but this is false. Modern natural grass fields are high tech and durable. There is also a sense that modern turf fields perform just as well as grass for all sports. This may be true of football, but definitely not of soccer. Everything form the speed of the ball, the bounce of the ball and the players ability to tackle changes on turf - for the worse. Its pretty fun to play on, but pretty dismal to watch.

Oh, and one final note, Merlo field at the University of Portland is natural grass, so if the Timbers blow it and install turf, there will still be one place to watch high-level real soccer in town.

And, by the way, the stadium in New Jersey is awesome, but there will be none better than Portland's if it is done right.

Soccernomics: Growing Grass in Winter

Grow lights at Arsenal

On the day the US unemployment numbers are released, I choose to blog frivolously because I just cannot be moved to again write - recovery, happening but painfully slow.  Then of course I move on to remind folks that the situation in Europe remains painfully dire and so on.  [Actually as an aside, the ongoing crisis in Europe gets lots of press in Brazil, unlike the US where it is of passing interest to the MSM - it shouldn't be]

So let's move on to far less serious things.  I see with some delight that the Timbers have already widened their field to 74 yards.  They are now 74 by 110.  Much better than before but they could use another 5 years in length as well.  When the whole MLS Timbers things was getting underway I worried about the prospect of watching ugly soccer played on a too-small plastic field.  And while I am a season ticket holder and loyal supporter it is very hard for me to recall beautifully-worked goals at Jeld-Wen, most goals come of set plays or sloppy rebounds or, every so often a bit of magic like Nagbe's goal of the season two seasons ago.  In fact most of what I worried about came to pas: despite the ignorant rantings of the Timbers front office the play on the field was sloppy and unattractive.

So now the Timbers are starting to get it (a couple of years too late, but better late than never) and have widened their field.  I am happy with this because, given the rabid fan base (and kudos for having an 96% renewal rate in season tickets), they could very easily not do anything at all to make the on field product better.  So if nothing else good happens, it seems incoming coach Caleb Porter has already affected a positive change.

But if a bigger field is better, it is still plastic.  It is a damn good plastic field to be sure, but no matter how good plastic is, it is not close to grass.  In one of the open houses I attended during the final phase of the construction of Jeld-Wen a statement was made that grass was out of the question as the MAC club blocks the sun for a good part of the year and as such the grass would never grow properly in the north end.  Fortunately, there is now a solution for that and one which is now in use across Europe and even in US soccer and football stadiums: Stadium Grow Lighting.  The Green Bay Packers use it, as do the NY Red Bulls.

Now, there are nights when any grass field is going to have trouble keeping up with the rain in Portland, even with hybrid grass and sophisticated active drainage systems, but nevertheless eventually grass has to happen and the only real excuse left is cost.  But with 15,000+ season ticket holders becoming more and more sophisticated soccer fans, both the financial resources are there and the future demand for a better version of soccer to watch.  Plus you get the added benefit of staging international matches and friendlies with bigger clubs that will not come and play on turf (witness the Sounders hosting of clubs like Chelsea and spending $1 million on a temporary pitch that makes the soccer even worse).

Paulson has said that they will continue to look at grass within the constraints of the usage of the stadium and evolving grass technology.  I think the technology is getting better and I hope that within the next 5 or so years we might see the Timbers make the switch.  

You can begin the debate about the environmental impact of artificial turf versus grass for which you have to apply lots of energy in the form of artificial light...

Bad Omens

The Oregonian today reports on preliminary plans to renovate and expand PGE Park for soccer in preparation for the Timbers 'promotion' to MLS. Near the end the article addresses the field itself and states:

And the kind of field is also under debate. Although nearly all the soccer-specific stadiums in the league have natural grass, it's unclear how well that would work for Portland's climate vs. the park's 1-year-old artificial turf.

As I have stated before soccer on turf is a vastly inferior product to soccer on grass and the fact that they would make such an assertion reads to me like they have already decided on turf and are slowly rolling out their excuse: 'it's just too rainy in Portland." Please. Clubs in the Premier League in England often play in excess of 40 games in their home stadiums in the middle of the English winter. And every single one of them has a natural grass field. Surely if they can manage, an MLS team that plays largely in the summer can too. More forward thinking MLS teams that have built stadiums recently in cold winter climates have even installed field warming systems under the natural grass.

Besides, turf is a real obstacle to hosting top European and international teams. Witness Seattle, who last night drew almost 67,000 fans to watch the Sounders play FC Barcelona. To host Barca they had to spend $100,000 on a temporary natural grass field that was laid on top of the artificial turf. This expense may be justified in a stadium that can draw 67,000 fans, but is probably not economical in PGE Park. As an aside, these temporary installations of natural grass on top of turf suck: they provide bad footing and a rough surface which may make the quality of the soccer even worse than on turf. But at least you don't have the ball ping-ponging around.

Since the city has approval rights over the design, they should insist on grass as it will have a real bearing on the long term success of this agreement. I, for one, am not paying top dollar to see soccer played on plastic. And big European clubs, who are a top draw when they come over for summer warm up matches often refuse to play on it. Since the city has a financial interest in the success of the team, they should not be passive on this issue.

MLS and Public Goods: Grass Fields

Okay, now that I have been all rah-rah about MLS in Portland, I think it is a good time to look back at the league's history and future. The summary is: it is mostly a big success story but there are some troubling signs on the horizon - most importantly the move away from natural grass playing surfaces.

The league started as a single ownership structure with 10 teams and only a couple of wealthy backers, most notably, Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt. Play was mostly in football stadiums and, truth be told, neither the play nor the atmosphere was very good. For a little while the future was uncertain, the expansion Miami Fusion folded, but the expansion Chicago Fire thrived. Losses were common, but Lamar Hunt's construction of Columbus Crew stadium was seen as a glimpse of the future: soccer specific stadia in which the team controlled all the revenue sources.

Slowly the league became established, more stadiums were built and new teams added, but the most important change was the number of new, deep-pocketed, investors in the league that diversified the league and sent a signal that it was here to stay. Now most existing teams are stable, many have their own soccer-specific stadium, and more stadia are in the works, and the league has solidified the broadcast rights and most games are now shown on TV.

A number of very important decisions were made along the way that facilitated the rise of the league in my opinion. The first was to scrap the silly rules that made MLS an international oddity, most notably the shoot-out that determined outcome in the case of ties. The second was a steadfast determination to get the game out of NFL stadiums and to keep it off of artificial turf. The atmosphere in big stadiums is awful (I know from my time in Denver), and the game on turf is horrible: the ball bounces and skids, and players are reluctant to tackle - a key part of the sport - and in stadiums with football, the gridiron mars the visual experience. All of which degrades the spectator sport badly.

This is where my concerns come in. Recently, in the interest of expansion, the league has gone away from the last two criteria. The Toronto franchise built a soccer specific stadium, but it has a turf field. And the Seattle franchise was allowed to play in Quest field and on turf. Vancouver will likely be awarded a franchise and will play in a NFL-style indoor stadium on turf. The degradation of the quality of the product for the spectator is deeply troubling. The Seattle decision is especially so. In the beginning MLS was seen as a good way for NFL owners to get some revenue out of their otherwise idle stadiums. But it has been a terrible failure: most teams that started in NFL stadiums have either folded, left (or are leaving) or are struggling to fill seats. Seattle may be an exception in the short-run, but the long run impact on the televised product of these reversals in decisions will be painful - especially as TV revenue is the key to the future.

So, should Portland get a franchise, I hope (pray) that Paulson puts in real grass. It is expensive to install and maintain. Apparently Chicago spent 1.7 million on a state-of-the-art natural grass field with heating and drainage compared to about $1 million for a new turf field. Maintenance is more costly for grass and there are concerns about durability. But Chicago is a stadium that hosts football and concerts in addition to soccer so if they can do it, surely Portland can too. I know it is a more expensive short-term option and may even be the individually rational long-term option, but turf is a bad option for the league as a whole. It is time for MLS to insist on grass again and the Timbers should too.

[Note, here is a consenting view, and one that makes another point: if MLS teams want to make money by hosting major international clubs, it is likely that those clubs will refuse to play on turf]

MLS in Portland: Grass

An alert commenter has pointed me to this story that I had completely missed:

Toronto FC to get grass pitch

Toronto's BMO field, home to Toronto FC, will replace its artificial turf with a grass playing surface by the time the club begins its 2010 season.

Toronto council approved the switch last week, but the project needed the approval of both the federal and Ontario governments, which have paid for part of the construction of the $74-million stadium in 2007.

Mayor David Miller announced Friday that both governments have now given the project the green light.

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, which owns Toronto FC and manages the city-owned field, is investing $3.5 million to replace the turf.

After only three seasons in the league they are abandoning their misguided turf experiment. That this means that now all soccer-specific stadiums in the MLS will have natural grass fields. So only Seattle (boo!) and New England, who play in NFL stadiums on turf have no plans (as far as I know) to construct a soccer-specific stadium.

C'mon Merritt, commit to grass!

Soccernomics: Timbers Practice Facility and Field Size

Photo Credit: Bruce Ely / The Oregonian

Because it is Friday and Timbers game-day is tomorrow I shall cease to worry about the economy and its many woes and instead turn to much sunnier pursuits (especially tomorrow if the weather report is to be believed) - soccer!

So the Timbers unveiled their training facility to the media yesterday and it looks great.  I hope it will be a big help in recruiting and retaining players.  I was also delighted to read last week that they hired a conditioning coach as fitness seems to be a real problem for the Timbers - lack of energy late in games has been a killer.

Anyway the facility looks great and it seems to be a nice public/private partnership - as someone who plays soccer and who has two soccer playing boys, any new turf field in the Portland area is something to celebrate.  But I thought this passage from Geoff Arnold's story on the facility was incredible:

One of the highlights of the facility are the two full size soccer fields - a grass field designated for exclusive use by the Timbers and a second artificial turf field that will be used by the public. The dimensions of each practice field is the same - 70x110 yards - as Jeld-Wen Field.

The whole idea of a grass field is to be able to better prepare for playing the entire MLS away from home (with the exception of Seattle, Vancouver and New England who play on turf) just about all of whom have much bigger fields.  Why don't you have a practice grass field that is of similar dimensions to the actual pitches you'll be playing on?  Odd.  Though any pitch between 70 and 80 yards wide and 110 and 120 yards long is within FIFA regulations, the modern standard is 75 x 115.  Almost all new stadiums built for soccer are using this standard.  Of course the Timbers have opted to make their pitch as small as is allowed by FIFA.  Doesn't sound like a lot but the difference is 12% more space to play in, which is a lot.

What is also interesting is that you hear a lot about how the Timbers want to utilize their speed to their advantage.  But this completely contrary to the size of their pitch.  With such a small area in which to work there just aren't the spaces to run on to.  Now, you can be like the Arsenal of the late 1990s and 2000s, who played on a tiny pitch at Highbury but played a quick passing game which the present day Timbers are trying to emulate.  But this is speed in a very different sense (quick passing and movement in confined spaces and quickness of thought) and requires a supremely high degree of technical ability.  Most importantly it requires exceptionally talented and creative midfielders like Pires, Fabregas and Ljungberg and a withdrawn striker of the Dennis Bergkamp type.  Just watch tomorrow how slowly the Timber switch the ball through the back or through the midfield and you'll see what I am talking about.

In fact most teams that play on a small pitch play a compact defensive style that relies on counter-attacks.  Stoke City famously shrunk their pitch to be able to compete better in the Premiership with a team of limited skill and flair so it is interesting that the Timbers are trying to emphasize skill and flair and yet maintain a tiny little pitch.  Perhaps it is possible to end up playing the Arsenal way in Portland, but I doubt the ability of an MLS team to be able to pay enough to attract a critical mass of players at that level.  I think we are already seeing how a Franck Songo'o, who possesses great technical ability, could end up at the Timbers after a trial: his play and passion are seemingly very inconsistent - at least so far.  Too early to judge, but...

I have accepted that grass is just not going to work at Jeld-Wen but I fail to understand the Timbers dogged insistence on such a small field.  But this is all an exercise in nit-picking.  The Timbers are great the stadium is great and it is great to have them in MLS.  Let's hope they can put in a great performance tomorrow and get back to winning ways.

Soccer on Grass...Again.

The New York Times' Goal blog has a nice update on the new Red Bulls Arena and the transition of the team to the new surface. Here is the key passage which concerns the Red Bulls star Juan Pablo Angel and his concerns about artificial turf:

Angel, the team’s career leading scorer, has often complained about the artificial turf at Giants Stadium, which exacerbated his nagging back problems... “Everyone knows I’ve been the biggest critic, I never liked the turf,” he said.

Yes, Giants stadium has the new, modern turf. So it is not a matter of what fake grass it is, it is a matter of fake grass, full stop.

Juan Pablo Angel has been perhaps the most successful foreign star to join the MLS. While not a superstar, he was a successful striker in the English Premier League and could have signed a very lucrative contract with a team in that league when he decided to come to the MLS. He immediately became the most dangerous striker in the MLS (and he is all class to boot). So if he is dissatisfied with the turf, it suggests that other high quality players will balk at signing with a team that plays on turf.

Something else for the Timbers to think about...

MLS in Portland: A Comparison

As the Trail Blazers get ready for their new season, and as Bill Walton came-a-visitin' recently searching for forgiveness, I got to wondering how different was the NBA expansion to Portland in 1970 than the current MLS expansion to Portland.

As I am lazy and cheap and most archival new stories on-line are not free (can it be true, hasn't Google figured this out yet?), I am left to offer only some little tidbits of information.

Such as:

Average attendance of the NBA in the three years leading up to the Portland expansion year (1970): 5,967, 6,484 and 7,563.

So was the NBA such a (wait for it...) 'slam dunk' for the city? Perhaps not. The city owned Memorial Coliseum was already in existence and lacked a major tenant so it has parallels there. But the NBA was still pretty much a fledgling league (with the ABA as a competitor) and future prospects were uncertain. Since then the NBA, thanks in part to Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and the proliferation of color TV, has soared in popularity and became an international brand.

I suspect, however, that in the late 60's there were many who questioned if the NBA would go anywhere. What is interesting to me in retrospect is how much the Blazers are a part of the fabric and identity of the city.

So why so much skepticism about MLS? It is as established a league as the NBA was then. Unlike the NBA at that time it is already part of a global market, and one that is staggeringly enormous. And the league's franchise values have skyrocketed in recent years.

One big difference is that the city does now have an established major league franchise. Though it is also worth noting that their schedules complement each other's nicely - unlike the NHL which so many were so excited about a few years back.

But I am but a youngster, barely out of diapers. Anyone remember the talk surrounding the NBA coming to Portland in the late 60s?

On another MLS note, this is another troubling sign that, in the grass seed capital of the world, the Timbers may end up playing on plastic...

Nemo's original idea was to set the slogan against a carpet of lush grass, Nemo account manager Jessie Grav said. But team owner Merritt Paulson suggested the image be replaced because nobody knows yet whether the 2011 Timbers will be playing on grass or artificial turf, she said.

This is about the photo above. I suspect he would not be that worried if he didn't already suspect that plastic was almost certain.

Soccernomics: Grass?

The announcement that the Portland Timbers will take on English Premier League side Manchester City at Merlo Field at the University of Portland rather than at PGE Park makes me suspect that Man City would not agree to play on a turf field.   Merlo field holds less than 5,000 spectators meaning the opportunity cost of playing there is probably about 10,000 lost ticket sales.

One hopes that these economic realities will eventually cause the Timbers to try and facilitate a switch to grass, but it seems like it will take a good alternative for high school football to do so.

Oregonian Edition: MLS, Credit and Taxes

David Sarasohn has an Op-Ed in today's Oregonian (not on web site) in which he suggests the MLS team and the Beavers could share PGE park and in which he makes the erroneous claim that "several" MLS teams share stadia with baseball teams.  This is demonstrably false and very easy to check - only Kansas City shares at the moment in a temporary two year arrangement while they develop a soccer-specific stadium.  It also ignores the fact that on most days, the Beavers fill less than 10% of the seats of PGE park making for a fairly dismal fan experience.  I think it needs to be recognized by members of the press that MLS is the only current viable plan for PGE Park, full stop.  MLS will not work in PGE park sharing with the Beavers because of space constraints (permanent stands will need to be constructed long the 18th Ave side) and the difficulty providing a top quality natural grass field with a baseball infield.   MLS has made it clear to all teams that the sharing will not work and most MLS teams are either playing in, or in the process of, developing soccer-specific stadiums.  What to do with the Portland Beavers is a tricky problem, and the abandonment of the Rose Quarter so quickly thanks to a tiny, but vocal group who want to preserve Memorial Coliseum for ... what exactly? ... makes their continued presence in the city questionable.  And maybe having them depart for the 'burbs is the right answer.  Saltzman's Leonard's insistence that his support for the MLS plan is contingent on keeping the Beavers is myopic and may end up costly when, in a few years, PGE Park is vacant.  

Also in Sunday's paper, Ryan Frank has a great story on Tom Moyer and his stalled tower.

And finally A very nice editorial by Susan Nielsen asking the same questions I have: why hasn't there been any real effort on the part of Democrats to go after wholesale reform of the states fiscal system.  This dovetails nicely with a good article on the state tax system in general - mirroring some efforts I have made to try and make sense of it.  Dems' insistence on piecemeal hole plugging is pretty troubling and their justifications pretty weak in my opinion.

Economist's Notebook: The Economics of Moles

[I resisted the temptation to call it Mole-o-nomics, aren't you all proud of me?]

This summer a mole (I shall henceforth call him Morris, though in truth I know not its name nor gender) decided to make himself at home in my back yard.   At first I was okay with this development, feeling I could live in harmony with my subterranean little friend.  And at first, this symbiotic arrangement seemed to be working out just fine - a couple of mole mounds appeared, but only one in the grass and I tended to all of them easily.  But then old Morris started to expand his home at the expense of my yard that I had only just completely rehabilitated.  Not really being a good guest this Morris, thought I. And recently he has really gone into overdrive digging up my yard and making a general mess of my lawn.

So what to do?  Well. I went down to the local hardware store to look for mole traps but I quickly began to have serious misgivings as I looked at the description of the violence promised to Morris.  These traps are also difficult to set (requiring lots of digging and careful placement) in addition to their being quite horrific.  Inflicting such horrors on poor old Morris seemed to be cosmically quesitonable, after all Morris is simply being a mole.

But then the good salesperson introduced me to the 'sonic spike.'  This is a device that sends out sonic waves in the ground and claims that this will drive away moles.  My first instinct is that this type of application of technology never works and a quick check of the intertubes reveals less than satisfied customers.  Nevertheless, the manager of the hardware store was claimed to have personally used them successfully in my neighborhood so I figured it was worth a try.

Besides, this approach has economics on its side.   What I mean by this is that the principle of the sonic spike is to make life in my yard not unbearable but marginally less pleasant than other places.  In economics we know that economic decisions are made at the margin.  In other words, Morris doesn't think 'well the benefits of Emerson's yard outweigh the costs even with this annoying noise (which is probably true), so I'll stay.'  No, Morris, being subject to the same incentives that influence us superterranean beings, thinks 'hmmm...here are two yards seperated only by a fence, but one is just slightly more annoying so I think I'll go to the more peaceful one.'  So, assuming I am right about the response of moles to incentives, it'll work.  But even if it doesn't, it makes for a good economics experiment.

Now, you have by now seen the er...moral ambiguity associated with this plan.  My mole strategy has an external cost that will be born by my neighbors: I am not removing the mole, only hoping to get it to move next door.  This is an example of a classic externality problem: if a the total cost of an activitiy is not born by the actor, too much will be done.  I am a good self-interested rational agent, and since I don't have to pay the cost of my neighbors' mole problem, I do not figure it into my calculation of relevant costs and benefits, so I choose the spike.

However, a bigger problem arises if all the neighbors decide on the same mole strategy.  If we all plant sonic spikes, the old Morris will think that every yard is as good as the next and whatever made him choose mine will cause him to chose it again. 

So I am not convinced it is the solution to my problem (and there is the downside of little high-pitched hums that eminate from the spike about every 30 seconds), but it'll be interesting if it is, at least for now.  And it keeps me karmically safe in the interim.

Failing that I may go with what seems the next best route: stick a hose from the tailpipe of my car into the ground and gas old Morris to death.  My big quesiton here is how do you get the car to not stall out due to clogging the tailpipe - isn't this similar to the old banana in the tailpipe trick?

Economist's Notebook: Trees, Redux

In a previous post I mused about why wealthy neighborhoods often have wonderful canopies of mature trees and less affluent neighborhoods of similar vintage do not.

Well, today I got the Economic Naturalist explanation I was hoping for. I was talking to a friend who is a contractor in Portland and I posed the question to him. He hesitated nary a second and stated flatly:

'Gardens! Poor people needed sunlight to grow their own food and the rich just wanted green grass. So the poor cut down the trees.'

Now I don't know how far this explanation goes, or even how true it is, but as an economic naturalist explanation, I love it. Perhaps my dear readers can help sort out the truthiness of this explanation.

I look forward to your responses...

Soccernomics: The Green and The Green

It is Friday, I haven't posted in a while and there is lots of serious economic realted stuff to discuss.  So, naturally I am going to talk about soccer!!  As a matter of fact I stayed up way too late watching a grainy pirated-feed of the Timbers (did you know they showed the match in the UAE?) so now it is Friday afternoon and I am over-tired and my post about São Paulo and Buenos Aires will have to wait.

So off we go to talk first about the Soccer

First, turf.  The MLS website (which has undergone a transformation to essentially a news and blog site covering MLS and is quite good) has a long-form piece on the growtrh of turf in US soccer.  Unfortuately for all that length it misses what I think is the most important aspect - it does not discuss at all the aesthetic impact of turf on soccer as a spectator sport.  It asks the question: since turf is becoming so ubiquitious at the youth level will it soon become normal for it to be used at the pro level.  The focus is on players who grow up playing on it be accustomed to it.  I think that matters not one whit.  The point is what it does to the spectator experience and there I am pretty convinced it provides a lesser product.  I prefer to play on turf (except old or worn out turf) becuase the community grass fields are so bad in Portland. And I think they are great for kids. But that does not mean I want to watch pros playing on it.

[NB: Oops, now it is Monday and my unfinished post is still sitting here, so keeping on the soccernomics theme, lets look at the Timbers salaries]

Second, MLS salaries.  Here is the Timbers list:

For all you parents investing thousands of dollars for club soccer for your kids in the hopes that they might one day play for the Timbers and earn millions $35K.  Remember these humble salaries when you are out there cheering - most of these guys are out there for the love of the sport not the riches.

Valeri's salary is not surprising, but I was surprised by Silvestre - didn't think his market value had slipped so far. Takes the sting out of his injury, I suppose.  Piquionne: $150,000 for a rarely used back-up striker...hmmm.  Will Johnson is worth every penny, but I was surprised to see he had raised his value so high.

Ok, there, now I am done.

Futebol no Brasil

Watching Football in Brasil 

The New York Times over the weekend published an article by their travel writer Seth Kugel about watching football in Brazil.  Though I would not call it irresponsible, I would call it a bit reckless.  In it, Kugel urges readers to forgo the guided tours that will take you to a football match and instead dive right in with the torcidas, the supporters groups, and especially try to go for a classico, a match between main rivals.

There are two things wrong with this: one, this is may not be stupid to do, but you should know that you are taking on some risk - much more than he would have you know - especially for those that have no Portuguese.  And I am not sure his three matches are a big enough sample to really give this advice.  Two, there is a middle way: you don't need a guided tour, but if you spend a little more you can sit in good seats in an area that is calm and safe for women and children.  You will still get the full effect of the torcidas, believe me, especially for a rivalry match. This is my suggestion at least.

Why? Well the torcidas are predominately young, male, passionate and drunk.  Need I say more?  Without knowing properly what is going on, what to expect from them and so on you run the risk of getting into a situation that you would rather not be in.  If you do decide to sit with the torcidas, leave that iPhone,wallet, fancy clothes, etc. behind.  Remember that electronics in Brasil go for about twice what they do in the US so that iPhone 5 is worth R$2,400 (about $1,200). You should not take a child. DO carry some money.  The Brasilians I know all make a point of carrying R$25-R$50 in cash in case of a mugger.  No money makes them mad and you risk assault.  This is not to scare anyone, but you should know the risks and I think Kugel does no one any favors downplaying them so much.  He went to matches recently during the less intense state championships, things heat up when the national championships start.

But choose the more expensive seats and everything is generally fine, but as with all crowded places the world over, watch for pickpockets and, again, leave the iPhone behind.  Oh and things might be different in the new stadiums (and probably will be for the World Cup), but in my experience no one pays any attention to their seat assignment.  The more expensive seats are thus physically seperated so just find a free one when you arrive.

All that said, do not come to Brasil and fail to go to a game!  However you go, it will be a fun experience and police have become very good about crowd control before and after the matches.

World Cup in Brasil

The new Macaranã is starting to look close to completion

The World Cup preparations are continuing predictably here in Brasil:  Stadiums are woefully behind schedule and other promised infrastruture projects have long been laid aside.  In fact, São Paulo will not host a confederations cup game, the warm up tournament for the WC.  The biggest city in South America and the one with the most transportation challenges does not get any practice thanks to the Itaquerão stadium being so far behind schedule.  Corruption in the CBF, the Brasilian football authority, is rampant and lots of graft is happening in the name of expediency.

And there are now even quesitons about the stadiums that they are building.  A brand new stadium, built in 2007 in Rio for the Pan-American Games, the Engenhão, has been shut down indefinitely due to fears that the roof will collapse in a strong breeze.

And it is not just the World Cup stadiums that are being built, Gremio has just opened a new stadium (where the grass was not playable initially and a barrier collapsed during a match), and Palmeiras in São Paulo is in the process of building a brand new stadium out of the skeleton of their old one (and just yesterday a worker was killed when a huge concrete section of the old stadium fell).

All this makes me wonder whether in a country lacking in human capital (read: engineers, etc.) can so many stadiums really be built at one time.  Early indications say no.

Still, it will all come off fine in the end, and no one should hesitate to come to Brasil for the World Cup.  I certainly plan to - though perhaps not to São Paulo.   You just need to understand that things here operate a little differently and to allocate much more time than you think to do...just about anything.

Finally here is an amusing aside from the Fonte Nova in Salvador, Bahia where the translations did not quite come off: 'saída' means 'exit.'

Soccernomics: PGE Park Plans Released

The renovation plans for PGE Park have been released and it looks pretty darn great as a venue for soccer. Sadly, my worst fears have been realized and they will be playing on plastic. This means I will only be an occasional ticket buyer rather than a season ticket holder. I understand that the use of the stadium by PSU and high school football is a constraint, but high school football really has no business in the stadium (surely it is far too expensive to use it for this purpose?) and occasional high school football and the regular PSU football schedule can be accommodated as they are in other grass MLS stadiums. Hopefully in a few more years cooler heads will prevail.

But so it goes. I am still very happy that the stadium will have a new and exciting life as a venue for MLS and that the city will have a top flight professional team in soccer to cheer for.

NB: Since it is now a best-selling book, I shall ride the 'soccernomics' bandwagon!

Soccernomics: Size Matters Redux

Emirates Stadium - Home of the Arsenal

I see the Timbers are getting a little touchy about the size of their field:

Portland are 5-1 in league play at their home. And yet, over the past month, a couple of opposing coaches have publicly taken issue with JELD-WEN Field’s size and suggested that it plays into the Timbers’ favor.

“The pitch, because it’s a little bit too small, when you watch the games they played at home, it’s a little pinball,” Philadelphia Union coach Peter Nowak told local reporters prior to the May 6 game in Portland. “[The Timbers] press the other team, and we’ve got to figure out a good plan for that.”

Too small?

At 70 yards wide, 110 yards long, the pitch at JELD-WEN Field is FIFA certified and meets the governing body’s guidelines as well as those of MLS. Field dimensions are not fixed from one pitch to the next and are a bit like Major League Baseball ballparks in that sense.

The oldest club in English Premier League soccer, Stoke City, play in a stadium with exactly the same dimensions as JELD-WEN. Do other EPL teams complain that it is too small?

Less than two weeks after Nowak brought it up, Columbus Crew coach Robert Warzycha chimed in with his thoughts on Portland’s success at home.

“More than anything, it’s the [artificial] turf and the field dimensions,” Warzycha told the Columbus Dispatch. “And the way they play at home. They’re scoring on set pieces.”

For the record, Portland did score on set pieces to beat both Philadelphia and Columbus. But was the size of the field really working against the opponent?

At JELD-WEN Field, the dimensions are dictated to some degree by the configuration of a stadium footprint that dates to 1926. It also has to do with sight lines for spectators. (From the press box, it is difficult to see the near touchline with out standing up.)

They doth protest too much.  Of course the quote from Ben Olsen that was in my last post was from the coach of a winning team so there is no suggestion of making excuses with him.

Anyway, what strikes me in all of this is the explanation that sight lines are to blame, but not from the stands mind, from the press box!  Are you serious?  You would shrink your field just so those in the press box don't have to stand up?!?  That is so lame.

And by the way, bringing up Stoke City is neither here nor there, but since they did, there is a big difference between the level of play in the Premier League and the MLS for one, and for two Stoke City is grass so the size is not amplified by a fast bouncy plastic surface.  I don't believe that any other Premier League team has a pitch smaller than the 75x110 yards (the modern stadium standard).  Arsenal did have a Jeld-Wen size field and used to be known for cynical defensive football, but then Arsene Wenger came in and instilled a possession, quick passing style of play utilizing world class players who could pull it off.  Still, when they built their new stadium they went to 75x115.

Just sayin'

Beeronomics: The Hopopotamus™ Debuts and Time Inconsistent Preferences

Despite my claims that it is the Best Beer in the History of the World™, this the first iteration of The Hopopotamus™is good but could use some fine tuning.  The hop alchemy yielded stong citrus but fewer floral notes than I had hoped.  The yeast (Wyeast American Ale II was a wonder, hungry and effective - the final gravity of 1.010) was a good choice and I am pleased with the color and bitterness. But the hops don't sing in perfect harmony.  I slightly under-primed the bottles intentionally to give it a bit of a cask mouthfeel.  And it is definitely a beer that does not like to be served too cold.

UPDATE: Serving it at appropriate temperature transforms the beer.  It is really quite tasty when not chilled beyond recognition.  My fridge seems to have gone a bit hyperactive, once I solved the temp problem the beer really shined.  I am very pleased.  

I have an idea of making the The Hopopotamus™ as an annual experiment in hop alchemy.  Each year the same recipe save for a new mix of many hop varieties.  

Anyway, The Hopopotamus™ made me think of another way in which I fail to act like a textbook rational economic agent: I have a hoarding problem and therefore "time-inconsistent preferences.

...

Do you ever get caught up in the moment - at a pub say - and have that extra beer that later you regret ("I really didn't need that last one and now I have a headache...")? These types of indulgences that lead to later regret - something you would do differently if you had the chance to do it again - are examples of what economists like to call "time-inconsistent preferences."

It applies to procrastination as well, putting of an unpleasant task (like mowing the lawn, say) and then having to do it later under worse conditions (longer grass) is another type of time-inconsistent preference.  

What the term refers to technically is when people make mistakes in their choices because they put too much weight on the present. If people acted like computers they would very rationally take into account all future time periods appropriately and we would never regret our actions (or at least those with predictable outcomes).

For me this behavior manifests itself in many ways but one of the most apparent is my tendency to covet.  I hate to consume something that I enjoy because once I do, I know it will be gone. This could be rational if I get enjoyment in the anticipation and in the consumption - by delaying consumption I could maximize the total enjoyment I get for the good. But for me it becomes a burden, delaying until finally to good itself degrades, or the optimal moment passes. In fact this why, after a period where I was building up a collection, I stopped cellaring wine. I could never deal with the whole waiting until the optimal time problem.

Well, this same type of time-inconsistent behavior bedevils me in beer brewing as well. Last weekend The Hopopotamus™ was finally ready for its debut, and the result is great.  But now I have the problem of coveting it - I want to drink it and it is fresh and ready now, it will only get worse through time, but I don't want to reach the day when it is all gone. So I find excuses not to drink it and eventually will have a number of bottles in the back of the fridge that are way past their sell-by date so to speak. I will then regret coveting it so much and wish I had been less stingy with it early.  

At least I have an understanding and a name for my disorder.

MLS in Portland: Can Portland Afford Not To?

The Oregonian once again endorses the idea of bringing an MLS team to Portland. I support it because I am pretty confident that in ten years, it will be seen as one of those brave decisions that ended up being a tremendous boon for Portland. But as always, I am quick to admit that I am a big soccer fan and would benefit from it a lot personally. But MLS is now a solid league with tremendous future potential - there is no other reason franchise fees have increased so dramatically. The market now realizes that the once fledgling league is on solid ground with purpose built stadia and a link to the enormous worldwide soccer market. Portland could very well be the crown jewel franchise - it will, without a doubt, have the very best stadium. Even this stadium being built by Red Bull, while shiny and new, will be in the suburbs. Portland, to go along with its European-like reputation, will have a European-like urban stadium. But caution, Mr. Paulson: it has to be real grass, NO TURF!

However, there does seem to be one thing that has not been discussed much and that is the alternative - where will Portland be in a few years without MLS? Civic Stadium (oops, PGE park) is too big for minor league baseball and it is likely that the Beavers will not be there for long - even if this bid for MLS fails. PSU football brings in a paltry revenue but depends on the stadium. So it is quite probably that in a few years, Portland will have an empty stadium on its hands with debt and no revenue. It seems to me that the city should think hard about what's next if they don't back the MLS.

Oh, and by the way, can anyone tell me what the entirely incoherent column by The O's Ryan White on Sunday was all about? I have read it multiple times and I still can't figure it out.