The question of why sports teams are more likely to win on their home turf … yes, it has been studied. The Boston Globe writes about it.
Prime suspects:
- Visiting team has to travel
- Familiarity with the field
- Support from fans making referees partial
- Support from fans making teams play better (this is the most commonly invoked explanation I believe – “thanks to our fans for their great support”)
Though I do recall reading about another theory that home teams tend to have higher testosterone levels implying that they somehow see themselves as “defending” their home.
All interesting because the home-field advantage is such a basic fact of sports.
Support from fans making teams play better (this is the most commonly invoked explanation I believe
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I think so too. It would be interesting to know how much this can affect team sports like baseball. Sport like tennis, to my lay-person’s view, is more impacted by whom the crowd backs. I attribute that to the psychological component of that game being more prominent (morale ups and downs of player plays prominently in the game).
Hmm. Nate, I’m not 100% certain of that. I think (but am not certain) that morale and psychology are more significant in team sports than in individual sports.
In general, my personal sense is that when morale breaks down, the first thing to go is your sense of communication and trust. Only after that does intellectual judgment start to be impaired, and finally physical response time and other physiological factors.
Clearly, team sports rely heavily on communication and trust (I know I can pass the ball to the other guy and he won’t screw up); ergo, the effects of morale should in general be more immediately visible on a team than on an individual.
Of course, I could be completely wrong. :P
But support for a team is support for a couple of sportsmen, whereas support for the domestic tennis player is concentrated on him alone. So the effect of the moral backup would be stronger for an individual.
The “defending” point is a cool argument.
Philipp, are you saying that support gets diluted when it is for a team – are you sure? Everybody hears the same roars from the audience?
Jesper, yes I think an individual gets more of the moral backup. As an example, Mick Jagger will be more psyched from his audience than a football player in a team. He knows, that all the spectators came for him, and not for the (in fact much cooler) drummer.
There is also the fact, that the visiting team believes that the hometeam has an advantage. Despite the fact that the stadium and conditions are the same.
Suggestion is a powerful thing. And faith can move mountains…
Nate/Philipp – (as the previous comments are tied up with one another) –
I think the question of the target of a crowd’s support is an interesting one, and also one that might actually be open to empirical study. What seems at play is the question of social-impact theory from psychology. If true, then where this gets really interesting for me is how it would indicate that “home-field advantage” is not _necessarily_ linked to a particular physical location.