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Does Crowd Support Drive the Home Advantage in Professional Soccer? Evidence from German Ghost Games during the Covid-19 Pandemic

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  • Kai Fischer
  • Justus Haucap

Abstract

This paper examines the relation between crowd support and home advantage in professional football in making use of a unique “natural experiment” induced by restrictions due to the Corona pandemic: so-called ghost games in the top three German football divisions during the 2019/2020 season. We find that there is a reduced home advantage in the first division, whereas no change is observed in the second and third division. Our regression analysis indicates that the decrease in the home advantage and the heterogeneity across divisions are not sensitive to a variety of performance, location, and team covariates and best explained by the lower occupancy rate in the stadia. Hence, the decrease in occupancy to zero at the ghost games has been less dramatic for teams that have been used to low occupancy rates. The ghost game effect decreases over time, however, implying that players adapt and get used to the new situation. We cannot find strong evidence for a change in referee behavior or teams' tactics as main impact channels of occupancy rates on the home advantage. We rather assess psychological reasons to be of higher importance.

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  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8549
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    Cited by:

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    2. Mauro Caselli & Paolo Falco, 2021. "When the Mob Goes Silent: Uncovering the Effects of Racial Harassment through a Natural Experiment," DEM Working Papers 2021/01, Department of Economics and Management.
    3. Dmitry Dagaev & Sofia Paklina & J. James Reade & Carl Singleton, 2024. "The Iron Curtain and Referee Bias in International Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(1), pages 126-151, January.
    4. Strawiński Paweł & Krawczyk Michał, 2022. "Home Advantage Revisited: Did COVID Level the Playing Fields?," Central European Economic Journal, Sciendo, vol. 9(56), pages 56-67, January.
    5. Colella, F. & Dalton, Patricio & Giusti, G., 2021. "All you Need is Love : The Effect of Moral Support on Performance (Revision of CentER DP 2018-026)," Discussion Paper 2021-005, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    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. Luke S. Benz & Michael J. Lopez, 2023. "Estimating the change in soccer’s home advantage during the Covid-19 pandemic using bivariate Poisson regression," AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis, Springer;German Statistical Society, vol. 107(1), pages 205-232, March.
    8. Carl Singleton & J. James Reade & Johan Rewilak & Dominik Schreyer, 2021. "How big is home advantage at the Olympic Games?," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2021-13, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    9. J. James Reade & Dominik Schreyer & Carl Singleton, 2022. "Eliminating supportive crowds reduces referee bias," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(3), pages 1416-1436, July.
    10. Hans Eetvelde & Lars Magnus Hvattum & Christophe Ley, 2023. "The Probabilistic Final Standing Calculator: a fair stochastic tool to handle abruptly stopped football seasons," AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis, Springer;German Statistical Society, vol. 107(1), pages 251-269, March.
    11. Kim, Chang Hyun & Lee, Kyung Yul & Kwon, Young Sun, 2022. "Does the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology mitigate referee bias in professional football leagues?," 31st European Regional ITS Conference, Gothenburg 2022: Reining in Digital Platforms? Challenging monopolies, promoting competition and developing regulatory regimes 265643, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    12. 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.
    13. Bryson, Alex & Dolton, Peter & Reade, J. James & Schreyer, Dominik & Singleton, Carl, 2020. "Experimental Effects of an Absent Crowd on Performances and Refereeing Decisions during COVID-19," IZA Discussion Papers 13578, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. 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.
    15. Bryson, Alex & Dolton, Peter & Reade, J. James & Schreyer, Dominik & Singleton, Carl, 2021. "Causal effects of an absent crowd on performances and refereeing decisions during Covid-19," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    16. Dilger, Alexander & Vischer, Lars, 2020. "No home bias in ghost games [Kein Heimspielvorteil bei Geisterspielen]," Discussion Papers of the Institute for Organisational Economics 7/2020, University of Münster, Institute for Organisational Economics.
    17. Sabrina Demarie & Emanuele Chirico & Christel Galvani, 2022. "Prediction and Analysis of Tokyo Olympic Games Swimming Results: Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Swimmers’ Performance," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-17, February.
    18. Stefan Thiem, 2021. "Spillover Effects in Contests with Heterogeneous Players - Evidence from European Football," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(12), pages 1378-1394, March.
    19. Dubois, Marc, 2022. "Dominance criteria on grids for measuring competitive balance in sports leagues," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 1-10.
    20. David Winkelmann & Christian Deutscher & Marius Ötting, 2021. "Bookmakers’ mispricing of the disappeared home advantage in the German Bundesliga after the COVID-19 break," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(26), pages 3054-3064, June.
    21. Tadgh Hegarty, 2021. "Information and price efficiency in the absence of home crowd advantage," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(21), pages 1902-1907, December.
    22. Christian Deutscher & David Winkelmann & Marius Otting, 2020. "Bookmakers' mispricing of the disappeared home advantage in the German Bundesliga after the COVID-19 break," Papers 2008.05417, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2020.
    23. Severin J. S. Oeckl & Stephen Morrow, 2022. "CSR in Professional Football in Times of Crisis: New Ways in a Challenging New Normal," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-26, September.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    home advantage; Corona pandemic; professional soccer; stadium occupancy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z20 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - General
    • Z21 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - Industry Studies

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