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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.

Suggested Citation

  • 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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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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 for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    5. Thomas Dohmen & Jan Sauermann, 2016. "Referee Bias," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 679-695, September.
    6. Oberhofer, Harald & Stöckl, Matthias & Winner, Hannes, 2012. "The wage premium of globalization: Evidence from European mergers and acquisitions," Economics Discussion Papers 2012-6, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).
    7. Rathner, Sebastian, 2012. "The Performance of Socially Responsible Investment Funds: A Meta-Analysis," Working Papers in Economics 2012-3, University of Salzburg.
    8. 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.
    9. Krumer, Alex & Lechner, Michael, 2016. "Midweek Effect on Performance: Evidence from the German Soccer Bundesliga," Economics Working Paper Series 1609, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    10. Rathner, Sebastian, 2013. "The Relative Performance of Socially Responsible Investment Funds. New Evidence from Austria," Working Papers in Economics 2013-1, University of Salzburg.
    11. 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.

    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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