Talk:Home advantage

What does this mean?
Ok so I was happily editing away and found this sentence:

'Usually psychological in nature, these advantages include: a familiarity with the playing ground, the ability for participants to lodge in their homes...'

What does the bit in bold mean exactly? --iamajpeg 14:55, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Players on the road stay in hotels, but when their team is playing at home, they also sleep in their homes. It is usually easier to be well-rested at home than at a hotel.  I've clarified this in the article.  --Locarno 13:54, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge from Away game
Agree with merge. It is the same subject, only discussed from the opposite view. --P199 23:05, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Rugby
In Rugby Test Matches, when the two teams have the same colours, it is the home team who has to wear the alternate jersey. For example: Italy vs France. When this game is played in Rome, Italy wear white and France blue. When this game is played in Paris, Italy wear blue and France white.

Article Title
I'm not 100% sure that this article is properly named. Most references to the "topic" include field (as in - Home field advantage). I would almost think that we should call the article "home field" and incorporate the concept of home field advantage in to the article. I'm not really sure, but something just doesn't seem to fit with WP:NAME. Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat 07:44, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Most of the scientific articles concerning this subject use "Home advantage" or "Home effect", eg. "The home advantage in sport competitions: A literature review" by Courneya and Carron (1992), the follow-up article by Carron, Loughhead and Bray from 2005 and many others. The term "Home effect" is sometimes used, as some teams might have a negative effect from playing at home, and thus have no "advantage" of playing there. GregersP 12:07, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * There is a home (sports) article...IvoShandor 12:18, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * What I meant to emphasize was the support of the current title in scientific literature regarding the home advantage. GregersP 13:16, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Causes vs. Factors
What's the difference between "Causes of..." and "Factors of..." home advantage? Both sections seem to be discussing the same things. Gr8white (talk) 16:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

To go under Factors After the part about the the crowd causing trouble with calling plays, I think an appropriate statistic should go there. The Seahawks, in recent years, have been known to have a strong home-field advantage. In a November 2005 game against the Giants, the Giants had 11 false starts. Most analysts and articles will say that this was due to the exceptionally loud crowd. Source: http://www.giants.com/gameday/2005Week12GiantsvsSeahawks.asp Edited by martyelm on 12-1-09 8:03 am

Numerical Example
I think the numerical examples section is pretty weak...the article doesn't say what the numbers mean, and as such, the numbers are pretty useless. The links are slightly cryptic as well, but it seems the numbers represent points/goals/runs. I was tempted to be bold and to eliminate the section altogether, but I think there should be some sort of numerical support. I don't think that Jeff Sagarin's personal rating system is the best way to show this (although I do respect his findings a lot). Maybe a different source should be used, any ideas? Mickeyg13 (talk) 06:22, 28 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with that assessment. I came here specifically looking for that kind of numerical support and was disappointed with what I found.  I searched further and found a site that actually showed for MLB the home field advantage by year and by decade based on number and percentage of wins (if there was no advantage you would expect wins to be 50%, but the numbers consistently showed a higher percentage for the home team).  That site may be copyvio as the numbers came from the Baseball Research Journal but the latter itself could be used as a source.  Of course that's just for baseball but maybe a start. Gr8white (talk) 17:46, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I removed the following numerical examples (which I've italicized for clarity) from the article:


 * The following are statistical calculations, done in 2007, of the home field advantage:
 * National Basketball Association: 3.2 
 * NCAA Men's College basketball: 4.2 
 * National Football League: 1.44 
 * NCAA Men's College football: 1.94 
 * National Hockey League: 0.31 

from the article for the reason that whoever added those examples to the article misinterpreted Sagarin's data. The numbers given are adjustment numbers that Sagarin is using as part of his team-ranking algorithm to factor in the effect of home field advantage, and his algorithm does not simply add or subtract these numbers from point totals; it's more complicated than that. Those numbers are not the average point difference that home field advantage gives (it should be intuitively obvious that these point totals are too small for it to be that; if you don't believe this, then take any given week of college football scores and average the point total differences of home teams vs. away teams, and you'll find it is a much higher figure, often into the double digits).

—Lowellian (reply) 14:16, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Bullshit?
from the article
 * "During the course of these playoff series, however, sports announcers or columnists will sometimes mention a team "gaining" or "losing" home-field advantage. This can happen after a visiting team has just won a game in the series. In playoff series format, the home-field advantage is said to exist for whichever team would win the series if all remaining games in the series are won by the home team for that game. Therefore, it is possible for a visiting team to win a game and, hence, gain home-field advantage. This is somewhat similar to the concept of losing serve in tennis and is complete bullshit."

why is this complete bullshit? can someone please explain?


 * Apparently that was someone's opinion but has no place in the article. I reverted the edit that added it. Gr8white (talk) 17:33, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The concept can be nonsense when not evaluated reasonably. In the 1996 World Series, the Yankees lost the first two games at home.  They came back to win the next three in Atlanta.  After Game Four, one commentator said that the Yankees had "regained" the home field advantage.  Did you get that?  The visiting team has won all four games, but something called "home advantage" is still being pursued.  I'd say that for a series such as this, the concept was rendered meaningless. WHPratt (talk) 15:51, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, in the first four games of the 2010 A.L. Division Series, the home team lost every time. Did any reporter state, after game four, that Tampa had regained the home field advantage?  If so, shame on him.WHPratt (talk) 16:49, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Re: Factors of home advantage
The noise level and effects of the unusual dome of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome are mentioned. There was also suspicion that the home team was manipulating the air conditioning to affect the flight of batted balls. It should be mentioned somewhere that the Minnesota Twins won two World Series, in 1987 and 1991, by going 8-0 at home and 0-6 on the road. WHPratt (talk) 16:00, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Noteworthy Irregularities
Two items that may be of interest re home field advantage:

In 1989, the San Francisco 49ers of the NFL lost a home game to the Bay Area earthquake. While Candlestick Park was undergoing repairs, the team played a "home" game at Stanford Stadium. They won, and ultimately posted a 14-2 record despite having only seven actual home games.

In 2005, the New York Giants of the NFL got an extra home game. Their opening game was scheduled for New Orleans, but damage resulting from Hurricane Katrina caused the game against the Saints to be played in New York instead. The Giants won the game, and eventually the East Division with an 11-5 record. The Washington Redskins, with the normal allotment of home games, finished a game behind the Giants. WHPratt (talk) 12:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Disadvantage?
I'd have to guess that if LSU lost 41-9 it had to do with more than the color of their jerseys. Gr8white (talk) 17:01, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

No Statistical Data
There is no statistical data to support home field advantage is psychological, at least not for the players. In the book 'Scorecasting' by Tobias Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim it is shown, through deep statistical research, that most of the assumed causes of home field advantage are negligible. Only officiating seems to make a significant statistical difference in the outcome of games.

In Major League Soccer, for example, when the home team is down by one goal the average stoppage time is around 4 minutes. When the home team leads by a goal the average stoppage time is 2 minutes. Stoppage time is determined by the head referee.

In Major League Baseball, thanks to Pitch f/x, we know that umpires are significantly more likely to call balls and strikes in favor of the home team in crucial situations. When umpires were actively being surveilled by the QuesTec systems, as opposed to passively by Pitch f/x, this bias reversed itself.

After instant replay was instituted in the National Football League there was little difference in penalties awarded. This makes sense because teams cannot challenge penalty rulings, which statistically favor the home team. However there was an immediate and significant drop in home field advantage where instant replay could be used. For example, before instant replay home teams had an 8% better turnover ratio than away teams, however since the implication of instant replay that advantage has dropped closer to 4%. When the home team is losing they have a 28% chance of overturning an official ruling. When an away team is losing they have a 40% chance of overturning an official call. This would appear to be an advantage for the away team but if you consider that a challenged play is under more scrutiny to be called accurately it leads us to see that the initial calls against an away team are often more biased.

There is no significant difference between away teams win percentage when they play in a team in a neighboring city versus a team across the country.

There is no significant statistical difference between players abilities to shoot free throws, kick field goals, score penalty goals, or even pitch and hit accurately when they are away from home.

There are many more examples of how this is true written in 'Scorecasting'. CaseDillon (talk) 14:14, 1 March 2011 (UTC)CaseDillon

Merger proposal
Home advantage, Road (sports), and Home (sports) discuss the same thing in three different articles. Well, technically, home and road discuss the same thing and home advantage discusses vastly the most important part of that same thing. I note that Neutral venue redirects to Home advantage. Why is there no Road disadvantage article? Merge all; possible titles for the merged page include: The title of the merged page is a minor issue. The important point is that, with so much overlap of content, it does not make sense to disperse the material across three articles. jnestorius(talk) 17:59, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * home team and visiting team (maybe problematic if home and away applies in any individual sports).
 * home and away (I note that Home and Away (disambiguation) doesn't currently link to any of the three articles.)
 * Oppose Although there is some overlap, I think the separate articles are warranted. Home advantage should not cover traditions for the home team and Home (sports) should be a bit different from Road (sports).--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:05, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Do you mean (a) should-be-different-at-some-point-in-the-future or (b) actually-is-different-as-the-articles-currently-stand? If (a), I say let's cross that bridge when we come to it, avoid premature optimization. If (b), I'm not seeing it. jnestorius(talk) 02:09, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Late-inning baseball
The paragraph that beging "In baseball, there is always a psychological home advantage when the game is tied or close in the 9th or in extra innings" discusses said psychological advantages. It concludes with "There is no clear-cut, physical advantage because both teams are given the same number of opportunities (i.e. innings). The advantage is knowing how well you have to perform in the last inning, if at all." Emphasis mine.

That last sentence needs to be expanded and the point amplified. I think that most would agree that the home team has a very real strategic advantage in extra innings. The visitors want to score a run, but are aware that they might score one and still lose, so they have to strike a balance on offense to keep the possibility of a bigger inning alive while striving primarily for some scoring. The home team, however, can go all out with small-ball strategies when the score is tied. Even in the cases wherein they've fallen behind, they do know exactly how many runs they need to tie or win.

(I see some things that could be construed as advantages for the visitors on defense: they can walk the bases full, pull the outfield in, and throw home on a fielding play without the need for any deliberation, things denied the home team on defense. However, these are low-probability-of-success strategies that can only keep their changes alive at best.) WHPratt (talk) 18:35, 5 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Your point is a very good one, and since this article does include a lot of sport-specific details, it's too bad you didn't just add it! (Although I suppose it is a bit OR-ish) Huw Powell (talk) 20:17, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Removed text
I cut this text off the end of the "Factors related to the game rules" section because it drifts away from the topic, first listing some exceptions, and then wandering off completely.

I replaced:

"...although the St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies have long followed an opposing tradition by wearing the team nickname on both the home and away jerseys, while the Texas Rangers have worn "Texas" on both their home and road uniforms since 2009, and the Miami Marlins have their city name on three of their four jerseys (only the team's orange alternate top has the nickname). A recent innovation in baseball is the "Sunday" alternate uniform, which is the same color for both home and away games. Regardless, all members of a team wear the same uniform (home, away, or alternate) in each game.  In one early-season 2006 game, the Minnesota Twins, in the middle of a vicious slump, played in their batting practice uniforms."

with:

"..although there are exceptions."

Huw Powell (talk) 20:15, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

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