Playing sports at a home ground provides a distinct competitive advantage
Extensive empirical research across various sports and leagues consistently demonstrates that teams playing at their home ground enjoy a measurable and distinct competitive advantage.
The retrieved papers overwhelmingly support the claim that playing at a home ground provides a competitive advantage. Multiple large-scale studies, historical reviews, and natural experiments (such as those leveraging empty stadiums during the COVID-19 pandemic) consistently document that home teams win more than 50% of games and hold a higher winning percentage due to factors like crowd support, familiarity, and travel fatigue.
A. Legaz-Arrese, D. Moliner‐Urdiales, D. Munguía-Izquierdo. Home Advantage and Sports Performance: Evidence, Causes and Psychological Implications. 2013. https://doi.org/10.11144/javeriana.upsy12-3.hasp
Reviews and documents the well-established existence of home advantage across competitive sports.
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R. Pollard, Miguel-Ángel Gómez. Comparison of Home Advantage in College and Professional Team Sports in the United States.. 2015
Compares American college and professional sports to demonstrate a statistically significant home winning percentage across all examined sports.
N. Vaci, B. Gula, M. Bilalić. Covid-19 Pandemic as a Natural Experiment: The Case of Home Advantage in Sports. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214241301300
Uses pandemic restrictions as a natural experiment to study the mechanisms driving home advantage, confirming performance differences.
Finn Spilker. Causal Effects of Crowd Support on Home Advantage: Evidence from Professional Handball. 2025. https://doi.org/10.32731/ijsf/201.022025.02
Demonstrates a statistical home advantage in professional handball and notes how spectator presence affects outcomes.
Nico Higgs, Ian Stavness. Bayesian analysis of home advantage in North American professional sports before and during COVID-19.. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93533-w
Analyzes professional sports before and during COVID-19, confirming home advantage patterns across major leagues.
Valach Renáta, Németh Dezso. [Psychological aspects of home advantage].. 2006. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17438659/
Examines the biological, psychological, and environmental factors contributing to home teams winning over 50% of games.
A M Nevill, R L Holder. Home advantage in sport: an overview of studies on the advantage of playing at home.. 1999. https://doi.org/10.2165/00007256-199928040-00001
Identifies key factors like crowd influence and travel that consistently give home teams an edge in sports competitions.
Chris Goumas. Home advantage in Australian soccer.. 2014. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2013.02.014
Quantifies home advantage in Australian soccer and confirms that home teams gain a significantly higher percentage of competition points.
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