Home advantage means that when a sports team competes in their own stadium or country, they are more likely to win compared to when they play in other places. This advantage is commonly seen in team sports like basketball, soccer, hockey, and football but has been validated to be fairly common all around the world (Carron et al., 2005; Pollard & Gomez, 2014).
Studies have shown that home advantage exists in almost all team sports, where the overall win rate for home teams is around 61% (Jamieson, 2010). However, this advantage is not as significant in individual sports like figure skating and gymnastics (Jones, 2013).
Researchers have looked into the reasons behind the home advantage. Some factors they considered are biological (like hormones), psychological (like confidence and anxiety), and external elements (like the role of spectators and referees) (Carron et al., 2005; Staufenbiel, 2015). The influence of spectators and referees is often talked about, but it’s not enough to fully explain the home advantage.
The most promising explanation seems to be how athletes process information. When playing at home, athletes have different expectations and motivation compared to when they play away. This difference in mindset can affect their performance, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy, where their beliefs about doing well or poorly influence their actual performance (Staufenbiel, 2015).
Carron, A. V., Loughhead, T. M., & Bray, S. R. (2005). The home advantage in sport competitions: Courneya and Carron’s (1992) conceptual framework a decade later. Journal of Sports Sciences, 23, 395 407.
Jamieson, J. P. (2010). The home field advantage in athletics: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40, 1819 1851.
Jones, M. B. (2013). The home advantage in individual sports: An augmented review. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 397 404.
Pollard, R., & Gomez, M. (2014). Components of home advantage in 157 national soccer leagues worldwide. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 12, 218 233.
Staufenbiel, K. (2015). Home advantage in sports from a social cognitive perspective. Dissertation thesis. Germany: University of Muenster.
Strausß, B., Riedl, D., Staufenbiel, K., & Heuer, A. (2014). Global home advantage in soccer. Journal of Exercise, Movement, and Sport, 46, 1.
