How does having home team advantage affect sporting performance?
Factors Affecting Performance
How does having home team advantage affect sporting performance?
Introduction
In order to find out how having home team advantage affects sporting performance I have decided to undergo the role of a sport psychologist in order to get an outside view as this will help me to see how home team advantage affects sport on the whole, in particular my sport of choice which is football. This way I will not just be seeing the affects home team advantage has on just myself but on everybody.
Home team advantage has been something that has affected me as I seem to play better when playing in front of a crowd that is supporting me. I would like to find out if it is the constant encouragement I receive when playing in front of a home crowd or if it is that I did not want to let anybody down who was supporting me which makes me perform better.
Research Findings
Team
P
Home
Away
Pts
Goal
Diff
W
D
L
F
A
W
D
L
F
A
Man Utd
36
5
2
46
1
3
2
3
37
5
88
57
Chelsea
36
2
5
0
36
0
2
4
3
27
3
81
40
Liverpool
37
4
3
37
5
6
4
9
8
20
67
30
Arsenal
37
2
6
43
6
7
4
7
20
9
67
28
Everton
37
1
4
4
33
7
4
8
6
8
8
57
6
Bolton
37
9
4
5
24
8
7
3
9
21
32
55
-5
Reading
37
1
2
6
29
20
5
4
9
20
24
54
5
Portsmouth
37
1
4
3
28
5
3
7
9
7
27
53
3
Tottenham
35
1
2
4
31
20
4
6
8
21
32
53
0
Blackburn
36
9
2
7
28
22
6
3
9
20
28
50
-2
Aston Villa
37
7
8
4
20
4
4
8
6
21
25
49
2
Middlesbrough
37
9
3
6
28
23
2
7
0
3
25
43
-7
Newcastle
37
7
7
5
23
20
4
2
2
4
26
42
-9
Man City
37
5
6
8
0
6
6
3
9
8
26
42
-14
Fulham
37
7
7
5
8
8
8
9
9
39
39
-20
Sheff Utd
37
7
6
5
23
9
3
2
4
8
34
38
-22
West Ham
37
8
2
9
24
26
3
3
2
0
33
38
-25
Wigan
37
5
4
0
8
30
4
4
0
7
28
35
-23
Charlton
36
7
5
6
9
8
4
3
3
38
33
-24
Watford
37
3
8
7
8
24
2
4
3
0
34
27
-30
This is the current Barclays Premiership table it shows that every team in the division has won more games at home this season than they have away ...
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8
30
4
4
0
7
28
35
-23
Charlton
36
7
5
6
9
8
4
3
3
38
33
-24
Watford
37
3
8
7
8
24
2
4
3
0
34
27
-30
This is the current Barclays Premiership table it shows that every team in the division has won more games at home this season than they have away from home, it is clear that every team has scored more goals and conceded less goals at home then they have away from home. A 2006 study by The Times found that in the English Premiership, a home team can be expected to score 37.29% more goals than the away team, though this changes depending on the quality of the teams involved.
The main suggestion as to why the home advantage occurs is due to the effects of a supportive home audience; the greater the noise, the greater the impression of support. Therefore, generally the home team will have greater support boosting their performance and possibly putting off the away team. The number of people actually in the stadium will also have an effect. There is a positive correlation between crowd densities, the number of home fans present related to the size of the stadium, and team performance.
Bray (1999) aimed to examine the home versus away records of individual teams in order to more fully describe team performance outcomes in relation to game location. A total of 20 seasons (1974/5 to 1993/4) of National Hockey League (NHL) team results were compiled, providing more than 30 000 games for analysis. In previous research, home advantage has been calculated as home winning percentage, the average of the ratio of home games won to the number of home games played. This however, does not look at the individual team's performance. This study used an alternative measure of home advantage, home winning percentage minus away winning percentage. Therefore, in each year a team could either have a home advantage, a home disadvantage or no effect. The sample was categorised into three groups; high quality (66 teams), average (273 teams) and low quality (70 teams). The major finding was that the majority of teams in the NHL won a greater percentage of their home games than their away games. The teams won an average of 17.3 per cent more games at home than away. There was no difference in the home advantage between the different classifications of team. The team with the greatest home advantage actually won 52.5 per cent more of their games at home than away. This study demonstrates the importance of the home environment for sports teams and indicates that it is strongly linked to winning.
The 12th man is a term commonly used to describe the fans within a stadium during football matches. The rules of football allow a maximum of eleven players per team on the playing field at a time, the term 12th man means the attempt of a team's fans to help their team. Due to the very nature of fans, their presence can have a good impact on how the teams perform.
A great example of a team that thrives off home team advantage is Chelsea who have not lost a game in the English Premiership at their home ground of Stamford Bridge in almost three years.
Application to Performance
In order to prove the advantages of being the home side I dedcided to carry out my own experiement to prove this. For my experiment I decided to observe a series of year 11 football matches and take along a group of people who support the team.
I decided that I would use a group of friends between about 15-20, enough to influence a match where there were very few spectators. I decided to have the group support the year 11 team home and away to see what affect it had. I would record the score from each game and would see if home team advantage had any affect on the team.
Game
Home/Away
Score
Game 1
Away
Won 3-1
Game 2
Home
Won 5-0
Game 3
Home
Won 9-1
Game 4
Home
Won 2-0
Game 5
Away
Lost 4-3
Game 6
Home
Won 5-2
The results show that every game the team played at home they won. In the game when the team won away from home it was like being at home as the opposition had no support where as the team had the group of supporters who were hostile towards the opposition in every game. In one game in which the team won 9-1 the other team were obviously intimated as some players seemed frightened to go near the bye line the group of supporters were standing by. In the game in which the team lost 4-3 the were playing against a good team who had a lot of support aswel.
It is evident from this that home team advantage is a major factor. However, in this experiement there are issues that must be taken into consideration such as the fact that the year 11 team are a highly skilled team and they were often playing agsinst less illustrious players where the outcome would not differ whether the team was playing home or away. However it was evident that when the team were playing against a team close to their skill level who had a fairly large number of supporters they did not play as well as they usually did.
When I asked some of the players from the year 11 team if they thought having the extra support was helpful when they were playing in the matches helped some said that it made no difference and they just playd their normal game anyway but some saide that it was helpful as they felt that if people would bother to come and watch them and cheer them on they felt more drive to win games as they did not want to let anybody down.
Conclusion/Evaluation
I believe that from my research it is clear to see that home team advantage plays a big part in increasing a team's performance. I believe that the most important aspect to having home advantage is playing in front of your home crowd. I believe this to be the most important aspect as the crowd have the power to inspire the home team but also intimidate the away team which can help the home team to win even if they don't perform to their full ability.
I believe Bray's research is an important factor in proving that home team advantage affect sporting performance in a positive manner. I believe that although his research was carried out on the NHL it does apply to other sports including football and the same experiment could easily be carried out on the English Premiership and the figure are clear from his research in the favour that home team advantage doe have a positive effect on a teams performance as they have higher win rates at home whatever the standard of the team.
I thought my research was useful in the fact that it answered the question I set out to answer of how home team advantage affects sporting performance. Although I never found any research to make me believe that home team advantage did not occur, the research I did find convinced me that home team advantage is an important aspect of a good team. This is obvious just at looking at ground density, for example, Man td have the biggest stadium in the division, have the best home record in the division and have just won the division, which is clear evidence that home team advantage has a great affect on a team.
In conclusion I appreciate that the topic of home team advantage is an important factor for me to understand my sport of choice. This is because I now know why a team and an individual perform better when playing at home. Therefore I can now, when playing away from home, prepare myself mentally and hopefully now perform away from home as good as I would at home, as it is only psychological reasons why an individual performs better at home. Therefore I will become a more consistent performer which will in turn make me a better player.
WORD COUNT = 1481 (Excluding Tables)
Michael McDonnell
