Abstract
Background: The role of cheering in home advantage in sports performance is unclear. As anti-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) restrictive measures have prevented crowds from entering stadiums, analysis of the past two football seasons can reveal important details.Objective: This paper aims to compare the last two football seasons in Italy with the previous six, highlighting changes due to the absence of cheering.Methods: We compared the average percentages of points obtained in home matches from 2013 to 2019 with those in the timelapse 2019-2021. The same operation was performed with referee statistics, such as fouls, penalties, and cards awarded against home teams. To do this, we used Welch's t-test and percentage increases. Pearson and Spearman's correlations were searched between the percentages of points collected in home matches and total points earned from 2013 to 2021.Results: The average percentage of points collected by teams in home matches dropped by 8% (Welch’s t = −4.3). The negative correlations between home collected points and total points in 2013-2019 timelapse have significantly diminished during the last two seasons (Welch’s t = 6.2), approaching zero. Penalties against home teams have increased by 30% (Welch’s t = 2.6), reaching 51.4%.Conclusions: This research provides statistical evidence supporting the crowd’s impact on sports and refereeing performance in Serie A. However, our results also suggest that part of the home advantage is linked to factors independent of the audience. Future research can deepen the above phenomena from a theoretical-psychological point of view.
Highlights
The effect of public cheering on sports performance has been historically investigated by vast scientific literature [1]
Our results suggest that part of the home advantage is linked to factors independent of the audience
Benz and Lopez used a bivariate Poisson regression to prove the dependence of the phenomenon on the league under consideration [11], and Tilp and Thaller even found a reversal from home advantage to disadvantage [12]
Summary
The effect of public cheering on sports performance has been historically investigated by vast scientific literature [1]. Other studies have proposed additional factors that can increase the home advantage, such as away-team travels, familiarity with local facilities, and territoriality or tactics issues [5] In this context, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic offered an unprecedented historical scenario; the nonpharmacological countermeasures adopted to contain the infection - such as social distancing and lockdowns - forced teams and athletes to perform without the fans' support for most of the seasons [6]. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic offered an unprecedented historical scenario; the nonpharmacological countermeasures adopted to contain the infection - such as social distancing and lockdowns - forced teams and athletes to perform without the fans' support for most of the seasons [6] This situation has given rise to many studies aimed at unraveling the skein of home advantage once and for all [7]. As anti-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) restrictive measures have prevented crowds from entering stadiums, analysis of the past two football seasons can reveal important details
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