The debate over home field advantage's merits and existence has come to the forefront in the sports media. Colin Cowherd, ESPN radio personality, suggests that home field advantage is void. The Jets, Steelers, and countless other teams have a better record away from home. He cites the use of technology to cancel crowd noise and corporate personnel attending games that leads to less excited home crowds.While it is true that headsets and a more affluent crowd base means easier communication, I feel that home field advantage is borne not from crowd noise, but from a source directly tied to each outcome of every single sporting event.
The referees.
The good old zebras offer up the biggest home field advantage in sports today. I listened to Steve Czaban, radio personality on the Bob and Brian In The Morning program, run over the statistics of home field advantage based on a Harvard and Sports Illustrated research study.
Czaban, Harvard, and Sports Illustrated state that referees are influencing games more dramatically than any other factor in terms of home field advantage. Referees empathize with the home crowd and are more susceptible to the pleas of thousands. The referees go through a social process whereby they are more inclined to side with the home crowd. Referees are only human beings after all. Unless we computerize everything, it will always be an imperfect system.
The old reason for home field advantage was because of crowd noise. College stadiums are much louder than professional stadiums; so thus, they should have a higher home field advantage than professional sports. However, only college basketball has a higher percentage of home field advantage successes. Also, Sports Illustrated attests this phenomenon to powerhouse teams inviting smaller non-conference teams to play at their stadiums, so big schools have 5 or 6 wins at home right off the bat. Think about it, Duke is not going to play at Creighton or Dayton.
Crowd noise should affect free throw percentage right? Nope. Since they kept track of free throw percentage the visiting team has shot on average 75.3%. The home team, 75.9%. Shooting percentages for home and away also differ very slightly. In baseball, Pitch FX tracked over 2 million pitches the last three years. Pitchers in visiting stadiums threw more accurately and with consistent velocity than at home. Crowd noise, although somewhat an advantage I will admit, does not play a crucial role in terms of home field advantage. But, what could be the significant advantage.
Referees provide the coup de grace in terms of home field advantage.
Quest Tech is the instrumentation that MLB uses to track balls and strikes based on the guidelines assessed by the league. According to their data, when an umpire knows that Quest Tech will be used he calls more strikes consistently against the home team. Without Quest Tech, the exact opposite occurs. More strikes are called against the visiting team.
In terms of instant replay in football, there was a 2% reduction in home field advantage from the time instant replay was introduced. Officials were acting with the crowd as a supporter to their decisions. Evidence to support the fact that referees are influenced by crowd participation also exists. In poorly attended football, basketball, and baseball games, home field advantage almost disappears entirely. The exact opposite happens in sell out games.
Here are the home field advantage numbers for the three major sports:
Basketball: Home teams win 62.9% of the time
Football: Home teams win 57.3% of the time
Baseball: Home teams win 55.6% of the time
I thin the most interesting tidbit about that information appears when you ponder the following question: which league had the officiating scandal that caused one of its members to go to federal prison? The NBA, that's right. But, they have the highest home field advantage rate too! Hmm....
What does this mean for the Green Bay Packers? It means they will have to overcome the human psyche and social enigma. What makes matters worse, Terry McAulay will be the official in Sunday Afternoon's contest. The Packers suffered from 18 penalties the last time Terry McAulay officiated a Packers Bears game in Soldier Field.
I certainly hope that the referees do not haunt a game in which the winner goes to the Super Bowl. This makes me wonder why the NFL would assign Mr. McAulay to this particular game? Here's to a Packers victory and a well-officiated football game.....I hope.
