A Machine Learning Approach to Analyze Home Advantage during COVID-19 Pandemic Period with Regards to Margin of Victory and to Different Tournaments in Professional Rugby Union Competitions.

Alexandru Nicolae Ungureanu,Paolo Riccardo Brustio,Corrado Lupo

doi:10.3390/ijerph182312711

Alexandru Nicolae Ungureanu, Paolo Riccardo Brustio + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182312711

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Abstract

Home advantage (HA) is the tendency for sporting teams to perform better at their home ground than away from home, it is also influenced by the crowd support, and its existence has been well established in a wide range of team sports including rugby union. Among all the HA determinants, the positive contribute of the crowd support on the game outcome can be analyzed in the unique pandemic situation of COVID-19. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to analyze the HA of professional high-level rugby club competition from a complex dynamical system perspective before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. HA was analyzed in northern and southern hemisphere rugby tournaments with (2013–2019) and without (2020/21) crowd support by the means of the exhaustive chi-square automatic interaction detection (CHAID) decision trees (DT). HA was mitigated by the crowd absence especially in closed games, although differences between tournaments emerged. Both for northern and southern hemisphere, the effect of playing without the crowd support had a negative impact on the home team advantage. These findings evidenced that in ghost games, where differences in the final score were less than a converted try (7 points), HA has disappeared.

Highlights

Home advantage (HA) in sport depends on several factors and it should be analyzed from a complex dynamical system perspective
COVID-19 pandemic situation stressed the importance of the crowd support in rugby union elite competitions
HA was influenced by the absence of the crowd support, it should be considered as a multifactorial phenomenon depending on several variables

Summary

Introduction

Home advantage (HA) in sport depends on several factors and it should be analyzed from a complex dynamical system perspective. HA has been well-documented in several competitive sports (baseball, basketball, handball, indoor soccer, roller hockey, rugby, soccer, volleyball, and water polo) [1], the causes are less well understood [2]. Rugby union provides an important context to explore this phenomenon because of the high level of home advantage [1] and the use of a television match official to help to provide a less biased decision by the referees. HA in rugby union was investigated both in northern [1,4,5,6] and southern hemisphere [7,8]. HA was reported to be oscillating around 60% in northern hemisphere international competitions between

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