A comprehensive survey of the home advantage in American football

Benz Luke (), Bliss Thompson () and Lopez Michael ()
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Benz Luke: Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health 1857 , Boston, MA, USA
Bliss Thompson: National Football League, New York, NY, USA
Lopez Michael: National Football League, New York, NY, USA

Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, 2024, vol. 20, issue 4, 277-291

Abstract: The existence and justification to the home advantage – the benefit a sports team receives when playing at home – has been studied across sport. The majority of research on this topic is limited to individual leagues in short time frames, which hinders extrapolation and a deeper understanding of possible causes. Using nearly two decades of data from the National Football League (NFL), the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and high schools from across the United States, we provide a uniform approach to understanding the home advantage in American football. Our findings suggest home advantage is declining in the NFL and the highest levels of collegiate football, but not in amateur football. This increases the possibility that characteristics of the NCAA and NFL, such as travel improvements and instant replay, have helped level the playing field.

Keywords: home advantage; National Football League; Bayesian models; football (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1515/jqas-2024-0016

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