IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rpanxx/v18y2018i6p892-905.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing the influence of neutral grounds on match outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Liam Kneafsey
  • Stefan Müller

Abstract

The home advantage in various sports has been well documented. So far, we lack knowledge whether playing in neutral venues indeed removes many, if not all, theoretically assumed advantages of playing at home. Analysing over 3,500 senior men’s Gaelic football and hurling matches – field games with the highest participation rates in Ireland – between 2009 and 2018, we test the potential moderating influence of neutral venues. In hurling and Gaelic football, a considerable share of matches is played at neutral venues. We test the influence of neutral venues based on descriptive statistics, and multilevel logistic and multinomial regressions controlling for team strength, the importance of the match, the year, and the sport. With predicted probabilities ranging between 0.8 and 0.9, the favourite team is very likely to win home matches. The predicted probability drops below 0.6 for away matches. At neutral venues, the favourite team has a predicted probability of winning of 0.7. A Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM) approach also reveals very substantive and significant effects for the “treatment” of neutral venues. Overall, neutral venues appear to be an under-utilised option for creating fairer and less predictable competition, especially in single-game knock-out matches.

Suggested Citation

  • Liam Kneafsey & Stefan Müller, 2018. "Assessing the influence of neutral grounds on match outcomes," International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(6), pages 892-905, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rpanxx:v:18:y:2018:i:6:p:892-905
    DOI: 10.1080/24748668.2018.1525678
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/24748668.2018.1525678
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/24748668.2018.1525678?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sutter, Matthias & Kocher, Martin G., 2004. "Favoritism of agents - The case of referees' home bias," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 461-469, August.
    2. Richard Pollard & Jaime Prieto & Miguel-Ángel Gómez, 2017. "Global differences in home advantage by country, sport and sex," International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 586-599, July.
    3. V. Barnett & S. Hilditch, 1993. "The Effect of an Artificial Pitch Surface on Home Team Performance in Football (Soccer)," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 156(1), pages 39-50, January.
    4. Mark W. Nichols, 2014. "The Impact of Visiting Team Travel on Game Outcome and Biases in NFL Betting Markets," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(1), pages 78-96, February.
    5. Carlos H. Almeida & Anna Volossovitch, 2017. "Home advantage in Portuguese football: effects of level of competition and mid-term trends," International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 244-255, May.
    6. Chris Goumas, 2014. "Tyranny of distance: Home advantage and travel in international club football," International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 1-13, April.
    7. Chris Goumas, 2013. "Modelling home advantage in sport: A new approach," International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 428-439, August.
    8. Michela Ponzo & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2018. "Does the Home Advantage Depend on Crowd Support? Evidence From Same-Stadium Derbies," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(4), pages 562-582, May.
    9. Cristiano Diniz da Silva & Cícero Paschoal Braga & Richard Pollard, 2018. "The effect on home advantage when a team changes from grass to artificial turf – a worldwide study in professional football," International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(2), pages 310-317, March.
    10. Bates, Douglas & Mächler, Martin & Bolker, Ben & Walker, Steve, 2015. "Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 67(i01).
    11. Fox, John, 2003. "Effect Displays in R for Generalised Linear Models," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 8(i15).
    12. Richard Pollard & Vasilis Armatas, 2017. "Factors affecting home advantage in football World Cup qualification," International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1-2), pages 121-135, March.
    13. Brambor, Thomas & Clark, William Roberts & Golder, Matt, 2006. "Understanding Interaction Models: Improving Empirical Analyses," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 63-82, January.
    14. Iacus, Stefano M. & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2012. "Causal Inference without Balance Checking: Coarsened Exact Matching," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 1-24, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. van Damme, Nils & Baert, Stijn, 2019. "Home advantage in European international soccer: Which dimension of distance matters?," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 13, pages 1-17.
    2. Seungwhan Chun & Sang Soo Park, 2021. "Home Advantage in Skeleton: Familiarity versus Crowd Support," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(1), pages 3-26, January.
    3. van Ours, Jan C., 2017. "Artificial Pitches and Unfair Home Advantage in Professional Football," CEPR Discussion Papers 12341, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Thomas Peeters & Jan C. van Ours, 2020. "Seasonal Home Advantage in English Professional Football; 1973-2018," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 20-025/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    5. Michela Ponzo & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2018. "Does the Home Advantage Depend on Crowd Support? Evidence From Same-Stadium Derbies," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(4), pages 562-582, May.
    6. Kai Fischer & Justus Haucap, 2020. "Does Crowd Support Drive the Home Advantage in Professional Soccer? Evidence from German Ghost Games during the Covid-19 Pandemic," CESifo Working Paper Series 8549, CESifo.
    7. Ekbrand, Hans & Halleröd, Björn, 2018. "The more gender equity, the less child poverty? A multilevel analysis of malnutrition and health deprivation in 49 low- and middle-income countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 221-230.
    8. Kai Fischer & Justus Haucap, 2021. "Does Crowd Support Drive the Home Advantage in Professional Football? Evidence from German Ghost Games during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(8), pages 982-1008, December.
    9. Thomas Peeters & Jan C. Ours, 2021. "Seasonal Home Advantage in English Professional Football; 1974–2018," De Economist, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 107-126, February.
    10. Jan C. van Ours, 2017. "Artificial Pitches and Unfair Home Advantage in Professional Football," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-093/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    11. Jordi Arboix-Alió & Guillem Trabal & Bernat Buscà & Javier Peña & Adrià Arboix & Raúl Hileno, 2021. "The Behaviour of Home Advantage during the COVID-19 Pandemic in European Rink Hockey Leagues," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-12, December.
    12. Carlos Alberto Belchior, 2020. "Fans and Match Results: Evidence From a Natural Experiment in Brazil," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(7), pages 663-687, October.
    13. Kai Fischer & Justus Haucap, 2022. "Home advantage in professional soccer and betting market efficiency: The role of spectator crowds," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 294-316, May.
    14. Giovanni Cassani & Robert Grimm & Walter Daelemans & Steven Gillis, 2018. "Lexical category acquisition is facilitated by uncertainty in distributional co-occurrences," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-36, December.
    15. Patrick Bayer & Johannes Urpelainen, 2013. "External sources of clean technology: Evidence from the Clean Development Mechanism," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 81-109, March.
    16. Gjerløv-Juel, Pernille, 2019. "Executive turnover – Firms’ subsequent performances and the moderating role of organizational characteristics," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 794-805.
    17. J. James Reade & Dominik Schreyer & Carl Singleton, 2020. "Echoes: what happens when football is played behind closed doors?," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2020-14, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    18. Aldo Coelho Silva & Adriana Souza Amaral & Lucas Alves Facundo & Melissa Talita Wiprich & Leandro Rechenchosky & Wilson Rinaldi, 2022. "Two Years of COVID-19 Pandemic: How the Brazilian Serie A Championship Was Affected by Home Advantage, Performance and Disciplinary Aspects," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(16), pages 1-11, August.
    19. Rongpeng Zhang & Carolina Campanella & Sara Aristizabal & Anja Jamrozik & Jie Zhao & Paige Porter & Shaun Ly & Brent A. Bauer, 2020. "Impacts of Dynamic LED Lighting on the Well-Being and Experience of Office Occupants," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(19), pages 1-27, October.
    20. Rui Matos & Diogo Monteiro & Raul Antunes & Diogo Mendes & João Botas & João Clemente & Nuno Amaro, 2021. "Home-Advantage during COVID-19: An Analysis in Portuguese Football League," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(7), pages 1-8, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rpanxx:v:18:y:2018:i:6:p:892-905. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RPAN20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.