Diminished Home Advantage in Chinese Basketball during COVID-19: The Role of Team Strength and Local Temperature

Zilong Li, Xidong Guo, Zuzanna Studnicka and Jiming Zhu
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Zilong Li: School of Economics, University College Dublin; Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin, Ireland
Xidong Guo: Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Zuzanna Studnicka: School of Economics, University College Dublin, Ireland
Jiming Zhu: Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

No 202408, Working Papers from Geary Institute, University College Dublin

Abstract: We examine the home advantage in the Chinese Basketball Association during the “neutral venues policy”, a period of approximately 2.5 years when games were relocated to neutral sites due to China’s strict COVID-19 regulations. We observe a reduced home advantage under this policy, providing a natural experiment to analyze the heterogeneous effects of neutral venues. We investigate these effects from two perspectives: (1) the relative strength of the home team and (2) the climate conditions of the home team’s original location. We find that stronger home teams are less affected by playing in neutral venues, suggesting that such teams rely less on the benefits of their home ground. Moreover, teams based in colder regions experience a more pronounced decline in home advantage during winter when they are unable to play on their home courts.

Keywords: Home advantage; COVID-19; Neutral venues; Cold temperature; Team strength (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 L83 Q54 Z20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-env, nep-hea and nep-spo
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