Home advantage in sport

[Sporting]

In which sports is home advantage most important?

Are there studies/stats out there?

Does home advantage vary according to the level of competition?

Which factors most influence home advantage?

Was the Kop really worth a goal start for Liverpool?

[ursus arctos]

This has been a frequent topic of study in North American analytics community, in part because the math is quite easy (explaining the advntage, however, is hard.

Here is a graphic of the relative advantage in the major North American pro sports



The Wikipedia article is a good survey and references a number of other studies

I haven't read a lot of the literature, but my sense has aleays been that the main sources of home advantage are conscious or unconscious bias from officials and familiarity with unusual aspects of the field of play (weird bounces off of the boards in ice hockey, "dead spots" in basketball floors, sun fields and slopes on baseball fields, etc. The latter factor can of course be accentuated by some types of surface preparation, but has become less important as surfaces have become more uniform over time.

[Ray de Galles]

There's a massive home track advantage in speedway, given the differences in shape, length and make up of the racing surface.

I've got an mp3 of an e-mail I wrote to TMS about it being read out and Boycott responding but I'm sure you'll all be relieved that I don't think I can share it on here.

[San Bernardhinault]

I haven't seen the stats, but cricket must have one of the largest home-biases, given that groundsman prepare pitches to suit the home team's attack (and the home team attack learns to bowl on the kind of pitch they're familiar with).

[ursus arctos]

There are helpful stats in this piece from the BBC, which demonstrates that away sides have won fewer than 30 percent of test matches since the 20s (and often fewer than 25 percent).

[San Bernardhinault]

The large number of draws means that the away matches won stat isn't quite as meaningful unless we can compare it to the percentage of home games won. The advantage is not going to be nearly as extreme as that figure suggests.

[ursus arctos]

If you insist.

The stats clearly show that home advantage makes a significant difference. Throughout history, home teams have won more than one and a half times as much as away teams, winning 40.42% of matches as opposed to 25.97% for away teams. Since 2011, this has increased further to a whopping 51.87%, almost twice as much as the away teams’ 26.14%.

What is interesting to note is that although the home win percentage has increased significantly, the away win percentage has stayed more or less the same. We have all observed that there are a lot more results and fewer draws than there used to be in Test cricket. What our statistics show is that numerically, the decline in the number of draws has mostly translated into victories for the home side.

[San Bernardhinault]

Thanks. So, yes, that's a much bigger ratio than in any of the US sports. Something close to 60% home to 40% away of games with results.

[ursus arctos]

It would be interesting to see if the effect has weakened with DRS (as it has with VAR), though the sample size issues are real.

[San Bernardhinault]

Your articles suggest a shift towards home advantage over the last few years, so if DRS has weakened home umpiring bias it's not enough to overcome other trends that favour home teams.

[Sporting]

It would be interesting to see if the effect has weakened with DRS (as it has with VAR), though the sample size issues are real.

Issues are real: typo or I don't understand?

[multipleman78]

Boxing should count here. The Americans benefit so much that, in most cases, the opponent has to come to them. Being away from home in training camps makes it tougher before we even get to the judging side of it.

I wonder how many of the world champions from America only ever gained and then defended their title at home.

[Sporting]

Don't judges in world title fights tend to come from neutral countries nowadays?

[ursus arctos]

I'm not sure that there are enough examples of DRS tests for a comparison to be really meaningful, especially given the variation in the way DRS has been applied.

[Sporting]

Got you.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I think in test cricket the "home advantage" has a lot more to do with the weather and nature of pitches than in, say, soccer. Cricket is different game on a bone dry flat track in the near desert of Perth than it is on a moist afternoon in Nottingham.

[ursus arctos]

The goal of Mourinhoesque managers who give detailed instructions to their groundskeepers is to get a relatively small portion of the advantage that is taken for granted in cricket.

[multipleman78]

Don't judges in world title fights tend to come from neutral countries nowadays?

They do but they are not immune to the pressure of going against the favoured fighter and ruining multi-fight deals.

The Sugar Ray's kinda highlight my point. Robinson went on a European tour with his title and ended up losing only his 2nd fight in over 130 bouts. Leonard ventured out of the USA once in his career and lost that one to Duran. I concede it was only to Montreal but it wasn't a home fight so i will use it anyway.

Other Americans have excelled away from home, of course. Hagler demolished Minter and more recently Spence Jr did a number on Brook.

I always have more respect for the American fighter who gets out the suitcase and does it around the globe.

[Satchmo Distel]

This is a better article on Test cricket, using Win/Loss ratio and excluding the minnows of the eras:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine...ry/921469.html

[Janik]

I wonder if there is something of a home disadvantage in individual sports? Obviously, I'm thinking Tennis here, but two notable recent(ish) examples are Amelie Mauresmo struggling in Paris (best of two QFs compared to title and runner-up in Australia, title and three SFs at Wimbledon and four QFs and two SFs in consecutive years in New York) and Sam Stosur really, really struggling in Australia. In general, i.e. the warm-up events as well as the Aussie Open (never past R4 in that and a 4-8 overall record in the eight tries since winning the US Open).
Andy Murray did win two Wimbledons, though. And Tim Henman made four of his six Slam semis in SW19. So, um, more data needed?

[ursus arctos]

I was wondering about tennis, and came to the conclusion that the best data would come from Davis and Fed Cup matches, where the home team can manipulate playing conditions to a significant extent.

I don't think individual results really work for a number of reasons, including the fact that a significant number of contenders can all be "playing at home" and the fact that "home" surfaces are not necessarily optimal for the games of "home" players.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Pat Cash came up short twice at the Aussie Open in his career year, didn't he? Okay, he was losing to Edberg and Wilander, but he won Wimbledon in between. On the other hand, Borg was unbeatable at Roland Garros and Wimbledon but lost final after final to Connors and McEnroe at Flushing Meadow, in front of a doubtless partisan crowd.

There are certainly examples of golfers winning big events around courses they are very familiar with - Paul Lawrie emerging victorious at Carnoustie in 1999 springs to mind, or local boy Larry Mize winning the Masters. Ernie Els won around six world matchplay championships at Wentworth, the course where he lived next to the 17th hole. But the "reverse advantage" thing can be found too - Kenny Perry was being roared up the final hole of the 1996 PGA by home fans in Kentucky, choked and lost a playoff.

[ad hoc]

The goal of Mourinhoesque managers who give detailed instructions to their groundskeepers is to get a relatively small portion of the advantage that is taken for granted in cricket.

If I had time I'd like to look up the relative home away win records of Cambridge Utd during the Beck years (and compare them with the period prior to that and after it)

[Antepli Ejderha]

The quarter finals of the Heineken Cup in rugby seem to be a good example of this, an away win is extremely rare and it's common to see all four victors being the home sides. I need evidence to back this up though.

[seand]

In the rugby Euro Cup it does seem to be a massive advantage alright, certainly for international matches

There was a strange little phase a few years ago where there were more away wins than home wins in the League of Ireland (maybe only in the First Division, in the mid-noughties, when Dundalk were there). I put it down to the onus being on home teams to attack, but lacking the qualifty to break down limited but increasingly well organised away teams, who play on the break.