The Science Behind Home Team Advantage

Finally, in the English Premier League, the home team wins about 49% of the time and draws 27% of the time leaving only 24% of wins to the away team.

There are a few different ways to explain the home team advantage with many of them actually being very logical as away teams in many sports have clear and tangible disadvantages. This is best exemplified by the NHL, in which the home team is allowed to view the away team’s line arrangements before the play restarts after a disruption which allows them to create mismatches and they get to choose whether to shoot second or first in the case of a shootout. While these are both minor advantages, they are advantages nonetheless and both give the home team a better chance of winning.

There are also completely understandable explanations to home team advantages in soccer. Most notably in the fact that fields have a regulation size range not a specific size. In fact, the field can be between 90 and 120 meters long and 50 to 100 meters wide,where the width has to be shorter than the length of the field itself. This potential size difference is drastic, although it is worth considering that most fields are nearly identical in size. Despite this, the familiarity that players may develop with their particular pitch size should theoretically give them an edge and there are a few famous stories to back this up. In one such story, manager Graeme Souness had the groundsman repaint the lines to make the field as small as possible, in an attempt to throw off the opposing team. Going into the match Souness prepared his players for the smaller field while their opponents were caught off guard. With this strategy, Souness’ Rangers won 2-1 on aggregate after losing the first leg of the matchup 1- 0.

Besides actual pitch sizes, another way the home team can throw off their opponents is in their keeping of the field. After a 1-0 loss in a champions league match against Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich’s manager and players complained about the grass having not been watered and cut properly. They believed this was an intentional ploy by Atletico to hamper Bayern’s possession based play by slowing down their passes. In the match Bayern Munich had the ball 74% of the time meaning that the poorly kept grass theoretically affected them more than it did Atletico Madrid. While there are differing opinions on whether or not this actually had an effect on the game, it is still a factor worth considering.

Besides the aforementioned tangible explanations for home team success, there is also the intangible, factors like the effect fans have on the game. As mentioned previously, 57% of NBA games are won by the home team and because the NBA does not have built in home team advantages, it is a logical step to assume that the fans must have an impact. The study shown on the right shows that away teams perform worse in every single major stat, clearly suggesting that the home crowd helps the home team and/or hinders the away team. While some believe that this comes down to anxiety that away players feel during games because of the crowd, another explanation is that NBA players are affected by the psychological phenomenon known as the “self-fulfilling prophecy”. Due to players thinking and hearing that home teams have an advantage, their performance dips as they are subconsciously expecting to be at a disadvantage.

Overall, the home team advantage seen in many sports can be attributed to many different factors which each have their own fascinating intricacies and explanations.