The Economics of Sport
  • Sports Economics
  • About
  • Workshop
  • Selected Publications
  • Book Reviews
  • A Primer on Gaelic Games
  • Upcoming Events
  • Media
  • Education
  • Resources & Links
  • Data

The Influence of Crowds

11/5/2020

 
By John Considine
Picture
If soccer games get to go ahead without crowds then we will get more data on how crowds contribute to home field advantage.  If the games also go ahead in neutral venues then we get a different data set.  However, it is unlikely to be as neat as the data provided by the nature of same-stadium derbies.  Data from these games are presented in a 2018 Journal of Sports Economics paper by Michela Ponzo and Vincenzo Scoppa.  Seven years earlier, results from the same derbies, but with less data, was published by Neils van den Ven in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.
 
The advantage of such data, as Ponza and Scoppa explain, is that it removes issues such as familiarity with the venue and travel fatigue.  These games are a sort of naturally occurring field-experiment.  The designated home team in any given game has the advantage of a larger support because their fans are allocated a greater number of seats.  Ponza and Scoppa take advantage of 22 seasons of Serie A data for same-stadium derbies in Milan and Rome, 10 seasons of data for Turin, 9 for Genoa, and 1 for Verona.  This gives a total of 128 games.  There were 64 games in Van den Ven’s data set.
 
The results from the larger data set show that the home team enjoy a goal difference advantage and take more points per game (although the summary statistics on the latter might raise some questions).  The authors estimated that 60% of the points advantage that comes from home field advantage can be attributed to the impact of the larger crowd.
 
We need to be careful in how we imagine the channels through which the larger crowd might have the influence.  We should consider the evidence from other sources.  Two teams from the same city might compete in a final at a neutral venue.  The travel fatigue and the familiarity with the venue should be the same.  Does the team with the larger support win?

Now consider the second part of the Ponza and Scoppa paper where the authors examine foul play.  They start by describing the items they are counting as “discretionary decisions of officials”.  Discretionary?  That is one way of looking at the situation.  Could the influence not be working through the players rather than the referee?  In fairness to the authors they attempt to adjust for this by keeping the refereeing decision constant in statistical terms.  Maybe we should also consider other "experiments".  For example, data on games where the referee has a hearing difficulty.

Previously, I presented some data on the home advantage in team golf.  In these competitions, there is almost no influence from the referee.  The advantages conferred by travel fatigue and familiarity with the venue remain to some extent.  Yet, the home team wins well above 50% of the contests.  We need to be careful when identifying the channel through which a crowd can influence a contest.

Comments are closed.

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    About

    This website was founded in July 2013.

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    American Football
    Athletics
    Baseball
    Basketball
    Behavioural Economics
    Boxing
    Broadcasting
    Competitive Balance
    Cricket
    Cycling
    Darts
    David Butler
    Declan Jordan
    Drugs
    Ed Valentine
    Epl
    Esports
    Expenditure
    F1
    Fifa World Cup
    Finances
    Funding
    Gaa
    Gaelic Games
    Gambling
    Game Theory
    Gary Burns
    Geography
    Golf
    Greyhound Racing
    Guest Posts
    Horse Racing
    Impact Studies
    John Considine
    John Eakins
    League Of Ireland
    Location
    Media
    Mls
    Mma
    Olympics
    Participation
    Paul O'Sullivan
    Premier League
    Regulation
    Research
    Robbie Butler
    Rugby
    Simpsonomics
    Snooker
    Soccer
    Spatial Analysis
    Sporting Bodies
    Stephen Brosnan
    Swimming
    Taxation
    Teaching
    Technology
    Tennis
    Transfers
    Uefa
    Ufc
    World Cup
    Wwe

Related

The website is not formally affiliated to any institution and all of the entries represent the personal views and opinions of an individual contributor. The website operates on a not-for-profit basis. For this reason we decline all advertisement opportunities. 

Contact

To contact us email sportseconomics2013@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @SportEcon.