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Distance matters in away games: Evidence from the German football league

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  • Oberhofer, Harald
  • Philippovich, Tassilo
  • Winner, Hannes

Abstract

This paper assesses the role of distance in professional team sports, taking the example of football (soccer). We argue that a team's performance in terms of scored and conceded goals decreases with the distance to the foreign playing venue. To test this hypothesis empirically, we investigate 6389 away games from the German Football Premier League ('Erste Deutsche Bundesliga') between the playing seasons 1986-87 and 2006-07. We find that distance increases a guest team's propensity to concede goals and exhibits a negative but insignificant impact on the ability to score goals. The parameter estimates of the squared distance terms indicate that the effects of distance on team performance are non-monotonic. Further, focusing on the outcome of the game (i.e., win, draw or defeat) as a measure of the overall success of a football team we observe significantly negative effects of distance.

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  • Oberhofer, Harald & Philippovich, Tassilo & Winner, Hannes, 2010. "Distance matters in away games: Evidence from the German football league," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 200-211, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:31:y:2010:i:2:p:200-211
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    2. Seungwhan Chun & Sang Soo Park, 2019. "Home Advantage in Skeleton: Familiarity versus Crowd Support," Discussion Paper Series 1901, Institute of Economic Research, Korea University.
    3. 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.
    4. Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2021. "Social pressure in the stadiums: Do agents change behavior without crowd support?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
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    6. Jesus Crespo Cuaresma & Max Roser, 2012. "Borders Redrawn: Measuring the Statistical Creation of International Trade," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(7), pages 946-952, July.
    7. Benjamin Furlan & Harald Oberhofer & Hannes Winner, 2016. "A note on merger and acquisition evaluation," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press, vol. 25(3), pages 447-455.
    8. Kai Fischer & Justus Haucap, 2020. "Betting Market Efficiency in the Presence of Unfamiliar Shocks: The Case of Ghost Games during the Covid-19 Pandemic," CESifo Working Paper Series 8526, CESifo.
    9. 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, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), vol. 13, pages 1-17.
    10. Stijn Baert & Simon Amez, 2018. "No better moment to score a goal than just before half time? A soccer myth statistically tested," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(3), pages 1-17, March.
    11. Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2013. "Fatigue and Team Performance in Soccer: Evidence from the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA European Championship," IZA Discussion Papers 7519, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Loretz, Simon & Oberhofer, Harald, 2014. "When Helping the Small Hurts the Middle: Beer Excise Duties and Market Concentration," Working Papers in Economics 2014-5, University of Salzburg.
    13. Thomas Dohmen & Jan Sauermann, 2016. "Referee Bias," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 679-695, September.
    14. Verhoest, Koen & Petersen, Ole Helby & Scherrer, Walter & Murwantara Soecipto, Raden, 2014. "Policy commitment, legal and regulatory framework, and institutional support for PPP in international comparison: Indexing countries’ readiness for taking up PPP," Working Papers in Economics 2014-3, University of Salzburg.
    15. Harald Oberhofer & Matthias Stöckl & Hannes Winner, 2012. "The Wage Premium of Globalisation: Evidence from European Mergers and Acquisitions," WIFO Working Papers 416, WIFO.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. Rathner, Sebastian, 2012. "The Performance of Socially Responsible Investment Funds: A Meta-Analysis," Working Papers in Economics 2012-3, University of Salzburg.
    19. Rathner, Sebastian, 2013. "The Relative Performance of Socially Responsible Investment Funds. New Evidence from Austria," Working Papers in Economics 2013-1, University of Salzburg.
    20. Alex Krumer & Michael Lechner, 2018. "Midweek Effect On Soccer Performance: Evidence From The German Bundesliga," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 193-207, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Professional team performance Distance Event count data Poisson regression model;

    JEL classification:

    • C29 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Other
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

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