Empty stadiums have shrunk football teams’ home advantage

Seahawks 12th man !!

I think to add to the travel/comfort one - there's possibly also some advantage to doing all your matchday prep in a familiar environment where you spend a lot of time. I know from playing hockey as a student I felt much more calm and loose getting ready, warming up etc at our "home" facilities (where we'd train every week and play every other week) than doing the same at some other location (which we might only visit once a year). Something about the foreign surroundings can put you a little on edge or distract you.

Maybe the difference is minimal and melts away after the first ~15 minutes when you get into the game, but you can yourself into quite a big hole in the first 15 minutes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRx3KrQ83mc)

There is a third type: structural home field advantage. Examples of these include Boise State's bright blue turf, Colorado teams playing home games at higher altitudes than most other teams, and hockey boards that bounce the puck certain ways.

And maybe not so relevant these days because most pitches are standard size, but years ago football pitches could vary in size, 90-120m in length, and 45-90m in width, maybe in the past even more, I remember some quoting some pitches as long as 130m+

Teams who were on the boundaries of these often took advantage of it, my home team played in a larger than average pitch and you would clearly see teams that went in full pressure to lose a lot of gas by the second half, the best coaches knew how to make this count. On the other side of the spectrum, teams with shorter fields favoured playing long balls straight from goal kicks to the strikers.

Tbf I miss a little bit the days where these small inconsistencies would affect the game and require a little bit more studying on the coaches part.

It's also the fact that you're in a new sleeping enviroment. People tend not to sleep well in novel environments, called the 'first night effect', until they become comfortable to their new surroundings. So even if the athletes did custom-tailor their sleeping situation to be just like at home, ti still probably won't be good enough to give them a home-field level of sleep quality.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(16)...

This is England, where all of the grounds are in driving distance of each other and an "away" game might well be in the same city.

It would be interesting to control for distance travelled, and see if a third factor emerges where teams play worse even if they can stay at home and don't have a significant train/plane/bus journey to make. The third factor could be very minor differences between the grounds, or a pure placebo effect, or a tactical reaction to the placebo effect (teams often set up more conservatively away from home because they expect to be at a disadvantage).

(I haven't read the article yet - I've used up all my free Economist articles - so maybe it touches on this, but it's neglected in your post).

The article is all about the Europe version where the teams don't need to have sleep overs or take plane but the football team's bus.

Also pitch sizes are not strict and both width/length vary.

The comment doesn't cover the article contents.

Home fans in European football and in South America are notoriously hostile, I've played in front of 3k crowd and its difficult, the professionals are obviously much stronger mentally but I can't imagine 70k crowd in derby match hating you. Americans sports fans are more like going to Disneyland compared to it.

You’re missing the third: weather. Particularly in the NFL, some teams have high difficulty coping with foreign weather. The Patriots infamously are unable to play in the heat of Miami. Green Bay is extremely cold which often limits offenses used to warm weather. Seattle is routinely rainy and makes things easier on their secondary.

random speculation. Could cheating in ways you can only do at home contributed? Not sure how you could test it. but would be interesting

tbh, I don't really understand why Coors would be such an advantage. It's not like the visiting team doesn't also benefit from the additional ball flight.

Do you think it has to do with roster building? Like the Rockies don't spend money on pitching because pitching has less value at Coors, so they load up on offensive talent instead?

The rules of the game of baseball lend themselves to home team advantage where the order of team at-bats and substitution rules heavily favor the home team from a strategic standpoint if players are effectively deployed.

Park dimensions + team makeup is a combination that can contribute heavily to home team advantage. The short porches in Yankee Stadium (especially in right) have traditionally granted an advantage to the Yankees' often left handed sluggers. The more the field dimensions vary from the norm, the more the home team has an advantage to tailor their team makeup to exploit them. Parks with high walls, short porches, heavy prevailing winds, deep outfield fences, or absurd dimensions ( Think Willie Mays fielding center at the Polo Grounds) all present opportunities for exploitation.

While the Astros had more wins on the road than at home during the regular season from 2017-2019, their 2017 postseason home/away batting splits were wildly inconsistent. Boston had the best home record in MLB by six games during the 2018 season in which they were found to be relaying signals to batters. I'd suggest that home field presents a greater opportunity for outright cheating as well.

It's amazing that the MLB has the smallest home field advantage, despite the fact that baseball fields are actually pretty different from each other.

I would've thought stuff like being used to the visual backdrop behind a pitcher's arm would let you see a pitch better or knowing where to stand to best play a ball caroming off the outfield wall would give more of an advantage.

Speaking on crowds influencing officials, I think this has been obvious in MMA with no crowds.

There are times of little action where the ref separates fighters, typically as the inaction goes on the crowd boos more and more. With no crowd different strategies have been implemented to allow for a slower pace at times.

Also the commentators talk so loud in the empty arenas the players have said they can hear them and make adjustments based on their commentary.

Last week a commentator shouted out to stop a fight at a UFC event which has caused some turmoil afterwards as well.

Fans can also now hear all the strikes and slams to the mat watching at home because of the silence. It's made it a much better experience imo.

While all this is happening the judges are also sitting ring side so there is certainly a human factor of outside influence going on in their decision making. (MMA and boxing judges are notorious incompetent)

Not VR but it was reported the English rugby team were training in front of giant speakers to prepare for matches against Wales [0], who have a famously loud crowd and a stadium that amplifies it, especially if the roof is closed.

I'd be surprised if gridiron teams don't do something similar since crowd noise is genuinely a tactical issue there (it's more disruptive to the offense) in addition to a psychological one.

[0] https://www.skysports.com/rugby-union/news/12333/9699222/six...

Isn't this what visualisation is used for? To the point that swimmers can visualise their race within a second or less?

Agreed. It's been interesting to hear how the players communicate and organise each other from a fan perspective as well - it's not something we usually have access to.

I was under the impression that they fell over in agony for the refs, not the crowd? But then I don't know much about soccer.

I think not being heckled, abused, or harassed will have a positive impact on most players. Though not all.

For some (and I mean in no uncertain terms, for black players and those from other minorities), it's probably a godsend, and that sense of 'relief' probably does have a measurable outcome (i.e. some players raising their standards, and others doing likewise to follow them).

OPTA and their like measure a lot of data points. So this hypothesis could probably be proved. Passing percentages, XG and assist rates for example, but I'd reckon individual running distances will be a particularly interesting metric to explore.

Any of those stats could go up or down for all players, but I do suspect there will be observable changes, because of these new playing conditions.

I think this is interesting and something I've thought about since the return of football.

Jurgen Klopp was always trying to get the crowd engaged and pumped up because he believes it has a huge effect on how his Liverpool team play. Without the crowd they seem to be missing that extra 1% of intensity that made them incredible pre-lockdown.

Whereas Manchester City probably don't feed off the crowd as much as Liverpool do. Manchester City are all about rehearsed routines so they may even find it easier without a crowd as they'll be able to communicate much easier.