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Home advantage mediated (HAM) by referee bias and team performance during covid.
Bilalic, Merim; Gula, Bartosz; Vaci, Nemanja.
  • Bilalic M; Department of Psychology, University of Northumbria at Newcastle, Ellison Square, Newcastle, NE1 8ST, UK. merim.bilalic@northumbria.ac.uk.
  • Gula B; Department of Psychology, University of Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Austria.
  • Vaci N; Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Sci Rep ; 11(1): 21558, 2021 11 03.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1500508
ABSTRACT
The fans' importance in sports is acknowledged by the term 'the 12th man', a figurative extra player for the home team. Sport teams are indeed more successful when they play in front of their fans than when they play away. The supposed mechanism behind this phenomenon, termed Home Advantage (HA), is that fans' support spurs home players to better performance and biases referees, which in turn determines the outcome. The inference about the importance of fans' support is, however, indirect as there is normally a 12th man of this kind, even if it is an opponent's. The current pandemic, which forced sporting activities to take place behind closed doors, provides the necessary control condition. Here we employ a novel conceptual HA model on a sample of over 4000 soccer matches from 12 European leagues, some played in front of spectators and some in empty stadia, to demonstrate that fans are indeed responsible for the HA. However, the absence of fans reduces the HA by a third, as the home team's performance suffers and the officials' bias disappears. The current pandemic reveals that the figurative 12th man is no mere fan hyperbole, but is in fact the most important player in the home team.
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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Soccer / Social Environment / Sports / Competitive Behavior / Athletic Performance / Athletes / COVID-19 Type of study: Observational study / Prognostic study Limits: Humans / Male Country/Region as subject: Europa Language: English Journal: Sci Rep Year: 2021 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: S41598-021-00784-8

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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Soccer / Social Environment / Sports / Competitive Behavior / Athletic Performance / Athletes / COVID-19 Type of study: Observational study / Prognostic study Limits: Humans / Male Country/Region as subject: Europa Language: English Journal: Sci Rep Year: 2021 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: S41598-021-00784-8