An Analysis of Home Advantage in the Top Two Spanish Professional Football Leagues

Abstract

This study examines the effect of the points system on home advantage in the two top Spanish professional football divisions between the 1980-1981 and 2006-2007 seasons. From 1980-81, teams were awarded 2 points for a win. This was increased to 3 points starting in 1995-1996. Lower home advantage was expected with the 3-point system as a consequence of encouraging more attacking play from away teams. The results of an analysis of 20,992 games showed no significant differences in home advantage values between the First Division (66.3% before and 62.1% after the 3-point system) and the Second Division (65.6% before and 59.5% after). Nevertheless, there was a significant decrease in home advantage in both the First and Second Divisions after the introduction of the 3-point system. The results were compared with two similar studies of professional football in England.

Home Advantage in Men’s and Women’s Spanish First and Second Division Water Polo Leagues

“…In other sports, the home advantage differences by the level of competition are inconsistent with no clear pattern. In football, some studies have found home advantage in the Second Divisions greater than in the First Divisions ( Jacklin, 2005 ; Silva et al, 2008 ; Pollard and Gómez, 2012b ), while others have failed to show any substantial differences between the top two levels ( Pollard, 2006 ; Dosseville, 2007 ; Seckin and Pollard, 2008 ; Sánchez et al, 2009 ). Interestingly, no study has claimed that home advantage at level 1 is higher than at level 2, a situation that would be expected if crowd size was a factor in affecting home advantage.…”

“…Likewise very few studies have examined the home advantage effect according to the level of competition ( Jacklin, 2005 ; Pollard, 2006 ; Sánchez et al, 2009 ) nor tested the possible differences in home advantage when considering the interaction between sex of participants and the level of competition. To the best of our knowledge, existing home advantage research in water polo is confined to a single study in men’s Spanish First Division ( Gómez et al, 2011 ), which therefore makes it impossible to know whether sex or the level of competition, or their interaction, affect home advantage in water polo.…”

Home advantage in European international soccer: which dimension of distance matters?

“…However, this phenomenon has been studied most widely in soccer. Numerous research has centred around analysing the home advantage in soccer matches at the national level, moving from country-specific studies in Australia (Goumas, 2014a), Brazil (Pollard et al, 2008), England (Clarke and Norman, 1995;Nevill et al, 1996;Carmichael and Thomas, 2005), Germany (Oberhofer et al, 2010), Greece (Armatas and Pollard, 2012), Spain (Sánchez et al, 2009;Saavedra et al, 2015), and Turkey (Seckin and Pollard, 2008), among others, to cross-country investigations (Pollard, 2006a(Pollard, , 2006bPollard and Gómez, 2014;Leite and Pollard, 2018). Additionally, research on the home advantage in soccer has been conducted based on World Cup data (Torgler, 2004;, international club competitions data (Page and Page, 2007;Poulter, 2009;Goumas, 2013Goumas, , 2014b, and data on international football games played in South America (McSharry, 2007).…”

Match Injury Rates in Professional Soccer Vary With Match Result, Match Venue, and Type of Competition

“…"The home advantage", for example, is a well-established phenomenon and is shown by the fact that home teams are more likely to win, 20,22, 23 have more shots on and off target and have more ball possession, 20,22 especially in the attacking zone of the playing field compared with away teams. 22 In addition, less foul play decisions are taken by the referee against the home team.…”