This document discusses the real reasons behind home field advantage in sports. It summarizes the conventional explanations for home field advantage like crowd support, travel fatigue, schedule bias, and home familiarity and explains why studies have found they do not fully account for its existence. The key finding is that referee bias towards the home team is likely the real reason. Studies have found referees are more likely to make subjective calls that favor the home team, like calling more fouls on the away team in basketball. This bias is attributed to human psychology and the tendency of referees to unconsciously conform to the preferences of the home crowd.

1. The RealReason Behind Home Field Advantage

2. Game Plan Hidden side of sports Challenge convention, explore new angles Facts about home field advantage Conventional explanations and why they fail The real reasons behind HFA

3. Home Field Advantage No myth! For all sports At all times in history In all geographies Why does it exist? Not for the reasons you think. First, the facts . . .

4. Source: Sports Illustrated, Jan. 17, 2011 “What’s Really Behind Home Field Advantage?” by Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim

5. WHY?

6. Home Field Advantage Four facts to remember: Exists in every sport Different across sports (soccer vs. baseball) Same for a given sport no matter where played Stable over time (same as 100 years ago)

7. Myth #1: Crowd Support How do you test for crowd effects exclusively? Free throw shooting in the NBA Shootouts in the NHL Pitchers and batters in MLB Punters/kickers in the NFL QB’s and crowd noise in the NFL If not much effect in these situations, how much impact could it have generally?

8. Myth #1: Crowd Support

9. Myth #1: Crowd Support *Control for: type of pitch, inning, pitch count, leverage. . . found no differences

10. Myth #2: Travel Fatigue What happens when two teams from the same (or nearby) city play each other? What happens when two teams from vast distances play each other? U.S. vs. Canada

11. Myth #2: Travel Fatigue Advantage is same as it was 100 years ago In soccer, no difference in advantage for vast vs. miniscule countries Netherlands, Costa Rica, El Salvador same as in U.S., Brazil, Australia

12. Myth #3: Schedule Bias Road teams play tougher schedules than home teams More back-to-back games in NBA and NHL College sports exhibit the biggest effect Adjusting for scheduling, NCAA basketball and football look the same as NBA and NFL Does not affect NFL or MLB or soccer

13. Myth #4: Home Familiarity Are teams built to take advantage of their unique home field characteristics? Doesn’t seem to matter much Cold vs. tropical weather teams in the NFL “Hitter” and “Pitcher” ballparks in MLB NBA and NHL? MLB has largest home field differences, yet lowest home field advantage

14. The Real Reason Behind HFA Referee bias toward the home team How do you identify this? Need to examine something controlled by referees but not influenced by players Extra “injury” time in soccer Also, red and yellow cards, fouls, free kicks

15. The Real Reason Behind HFA Referee injury time doubled if home team behind by one goal vs. ahead by one goal.

16. The Real Reason Behind HFA Strike-ball calls by umpires in MLB Home batter and pitcher favoritism Crucial vs. inconsequential situations Umpire monitoring technology (QuesTec)

17. The Real Reason Behind HFA Over a season visitors get 516 more strike outs and 195 fewer walks on the same pitches

18. The Real Reason Behind HFA July 3, 2009 Cubs vs. Brewers . . . At Wrigley

19. The Real Reason Behind HFA NFL: penalties, yards/penalty, turnovers Instant replay challenge (1999)---lowered HFA 30% Visitors get more bad (overturned) calls NBA: fouls, turnovers, violations Subjective calls: travelling, offensive fouls Objective calls: shot-clock violations NHL: same pattern Remember shootout results?

20. The Real Reason Behind HFA

21. Why Do Referees Favor the Home Team? No conspiracy, but psychology Social influence Humans conform to group opinion because: Social pressure Seeking information from the crowd Referees see things the way the crowd does Uncertain calls from information

22. Behavioral Explanation If true, then effects should be worse The more ambiguous the call The larger and more vocal the crowd Both are true HFA in every sport grows with attendance *(controlling for team quality)

23. Attendance Effect

24. Attendance Effect MLB NBA

25. Still Not Convinced? Psychology experiment with real soccer referees and video-taped matches German soccer stadiums with a track Italian soccer “experiment” with NO fans

26. What About the Four Facts We Started With? Exists in every sport because referees in every sport are human Different across sports because referees have bigger impact in some sports than others Same for a given sport no matter where played because ref has same role Hasn’t changed over time because role of referee has been pretty constant