Supporters Are Not Necessary for the Home Advantage: Evidence From Same‐Stadium Derbies and Games Without an Audience |
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Authors: | NIELS VAN DE VEN |
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Affiliation: | Department of Social Psychology, and, Tilburg Institute for Behavioral Economics Research, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands |
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Abstract: | The home advantage is the phenomenon in sports whereby the home team wins more often than the visiting team. The current data show that home crowd support is not a necessary precondition for the home advantage. In soccer games where no audience was present, the home team still had a home advantage. Furthermore, in some same‐stadium derbies (games played between 2 teams that share a stadium; e.g., AC Milan vs. Internazionale in soccer), the home team always has more crowd support, but in these games no home advantage existed. Together, these findings suggest that crowd support is not a necessary condition for a home advantage to occur. The phenomenon might thus be much broader than assumed so far. |
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