| Abstract: |
This paper examines the relation between crowd support and home advantage in
professional soccer. For that purpose, we make use of a unique "natural
experiment": so-called ghost games in the three top divisions of German
professional soccer during the Corona pandemic. We find that there is a
reduced home advantage in the first division, whereas no change can be
observed in the second and third division. Our regression analysis indicates
that the decrease in the home advantage and the different effects across the
three divisions are not sensitive to a variety of performance, location, and
team covariates and most suitably explained by the lower occupancy rate in the
stadia. Hence, the decrease in the occupancy rates to zero at the ghost games
has been less dramatic for teams that have been used to low occupancy rates.
Put differently, the more a team has been used to a full stadium, the more
severe is the loss of home advantage. The ghost game effect decreases over
time, however, implying that players adapt and get used to the new situation.
Our analysis also sheds light on potential drivers of home advantage such as
stadium tracks, travel distance, derbies and within-week matches. |