The COVID-19 pandemic caused disruption for a wide variety of professional sports, with many significant leagues being paused and a multitude of high profile events being cancelled or postponed.
Now that games are beginning to start up again, albeit, without the usual crowds of thousands of supporters in attendance, it is obvious that the atmosphere is very different. So how is this impacting player psychology and performance, and is this translating into an end for the home-field advantage?
Examining Sports Betting Odds
It is possible to speculate endlessly about whether or not home sides still benefit from a higher chance of winning than the visiting team, but unless you dig down into the data you will have no way of knowing for sure.
Thankfully now that there are a number of states with legal sports betting according to legalsportsbettingstates.com, you can easily check up on how odds are being calculated by experts with all the relevant stats to hand.
With so many domestic sports still yet to return, it is necessary to look overseas to get an idea of how events are likely to play out on a wider scale. Germany’s Bundesliga was amongst the first of the major pro sports leagues to resume in a post-pandemic world, and statisticians have found that the likelihood of a home-field advantage leading to a win has fallen by 50 per cent.
It is hard to argue with such a decisive drop, although it could be that stadium-based team sports such as soccer are going to generate the most remarkable hit to success rates. There are also plenty of other factors at play in dictating sports betting odds, from player injuries to a lack of leadership. Even so, it seems that, at least in the short term, there will be less of a benefit to playing on home turf, while crowds are absent.
Alternative Views
Although the home-field advantage may have evaporated in the wake of the coronavirus-based challenges facing professional sport, it is worth pointing out that the figures being used and assumptions being made are based on a comparatively tiny number of real-world results.
In order to draw conclusions that will be applicable on a wider scale, it will be necessary for far more data points to be taken into consideration.
With the Premier League starting up in the UK and other events getting underway elsewhere in the world, over the next few weeks it will become easier to say definitively whether or not early indications of the absence of fans having an impact on home game success rates are reliable.
Oversight Issues
Another of the complications that the lack of a home crowd can cause is that of different decisions made by match officials. Once again, studies from European soccer leagues over the years as well as more recently have demonstrated that referees can be influenced by supporters just as much as the players.
In short, this manifests itself in a more even-handed approach to decision-making when stadiums are empty of an audience. While referees seem to be more inclined to penalize the visiting side with the baying mob encouraging them to do it, they are far less quick to call out unsportsmanlike behavior on average now that there is no one else but them and the athletes.
This fact is certainly an intriguing one, and could be used to further analyze the myriad factors at play in determining the probability of a given side’s success whether they are playing at home or travelling to play in a different city.
Future Debate
At the moment, most of the discussion around professional sports is fixated on when games can be played once more and what precautions will be taken once they get underway to keep players safe. As it seems that large public gatherings will be prevented in many places for the time being, the absence of fans is all but guaranteed, meaning that the home advantage will remain diminished.
However, it is also possible that there may be momentum building behind the idea that professionals should actually play at neutral venues in the future, all in the name of fairness and balance. As it seems that both players and officials can be swayed by the support of the home crowd, it could be claimed that the only way to get a truly level playing field is to make teams face off in a place that is home to neither.
While such a shake-up is unlikely to ever be taken seriously, it will undeniably shape the way fans think about their impact on their side’s successes and indeed their failures.
