Fans and Match Results: Evidence From a Natural Experiment in Brazil

Abstract

This paper assesses the effect of the crowd size on home team advantage, using a natural experiment occurred in Brazilian football. In 2015, the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) quasi-randomly assigned games to be played under an alternative schedule on Sundays at 11 a.m. This measure significantly increased attendance in assigned games. Using this alternative schedule as an instrumental variable, we show that the exogenous increase in attendance did not increase home team advantage.

Professional football in times of COVID-19: did the home advantage effect disappear in European domestic leagues?

“…In the present research, the domestic leagues that ended first displayed decreases in post-COVID-19 HA (Bundesliga and La Liga), while the HA of the last three to finish (Premier League, Primeira Liga and Serie A) increased to different extents, suggesting an intriguing adaptative response of home teams to cope with the lack of exogenous support. The data corroborate the view that crowd support is not a necessary precondition for HA, and other factors, such as the familiarity with local conditions (e.g., stadium environment, pitch surface and dimensions), are actually more relevant for its expression [ 15 , 18 ], as previously recognised by players and coaches [ 11 , 12 ].…”

“…Similar results were recently observed at lower levels of German professional football [ 23 ], whilst prior evidence revealed that home teams participating in Italian leagues still had an advantage in matches contested without spectators [ 18 ]. These facts are reinforced by studies that have failed to prove the HA is enhanced with larger attendance [ 8 , 15 , 16 ]. Regarding regularity, the role of crowd support is at least questionable, because it appears to vary depending on the contexts in which the game is played [ 4 , 10 , 19 ].…”

“…However, specifically addressing the influence of crowd support (e.g., size, density and/or proximity) on HA, the existing empirical evidence is still ambiguous. Whereas some studies have shown that increased crowd support is positively associated with points attained at home [ 10 , 13 , 14 ], others have found that HA is not affected by attendance increases [ 15 , 16 ], and it even exists with small crowds [ 6 , 8 , 17 ] or in empty stadiums [ 18 ].…”

Home-bias in referee decisions: Evidence from “Ghost Matches” during the Covid19-Pandemic

“…In the above, y i,m measures our dependent variable of interest (e.g., the number of fouls). Note that this specification means that each match m enters twice; once where i refers to the home team and once where i refers to the away team (see, e.g., Garicano et al, 2005, Ponzo and Scoppa, 2016, Belchior, 2020. To account for the resulting pair-wise correlation we cluster standard errors on matches (see Abadie et al, 2017).…”

Echoes: What Happens when Football Is Played behind Closed Doors?

“…Goller and Krumer (2020) studied four of the major European football leagues and found that matches scheduled on non-frequently played days tended to have both lower attendances and less home advantage. However, Belchior (2020) studied the quasi-random reassignment of matches in Brazilian football to time slots which generally increased attendances, finding that this had no effect on home advantage. This paper also contributes to past studies which have focused on the bias of sports officials, and how this interacts with social pressure from the crowd.…”