Abstract
We study seasonal home advantage in English professional football over the period 1974 to 2018. We distinguish between absolute home advantage, enjoyed equally by all teams in a division, and relative home advantage, which differs among teams in the division. We find that absolute home advantage is substantial, ranging from 0.59 to 0.64 in terms of points per game or 0.44 to 0.46 in terms of goal difference. Likewise, clubs differ substantially in the relative home advantage they enjoy. Relative home advantage is positively related to within-team variation in attendance and the use of an artificial pitch. Despite big cross-divisional differences in attendance, absolute home advantage is about the same in all divisions. Finally, there is a substantial decline in absolute home advantage over time that materializes equally across divisions.
Highlights
The existence of home advantage in professional football is well-established. Pollard (1986) studies how home advantage has developed in the top English division since its inception in 1888
As in previous studies we investigate the effect of stadium attendance on home advantage, but we look at the nature of the pitch, whether a team was recently promoted or relegated and whether wages paid to players matter
When we look at the managers the teams employed, we find stark differences in the average relative home advantage individual managers enjoyed
Summary
The existence of home advantage in professional football is well-established. Pollard (1986) studies how home advantage has developed in the top English division since its inception in 1888. Barnett and Hilditch (1993) investigated the effects of playing on an artificial pitch rather than on natural grass They find an additional home advantage of playing on an artificial pitch of 0.28 points and 0.31 goals per match.1 Clarke and Norman (1995) study seasonal home advantage for all English football teams over the period 1981 to 1990. For Dutch professional football, van Ours (2019) finds a home advantage of 0.33 points and 0.42 goals per match while teams who play on an artificial pitch have an additional home advantage. While the home advantage in terms of points is important from a competitive point of view, the home advantage in terms Note that in this set-up the average performance over all teams in a league in a particular season is normalized to zero, i.e
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