IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/umiodp/319069.html

Home bias in different German football leagues

Author

Listed:
  • Böttger, Tom
  • Vischer, Lars

Abstract

This study investigates the presence and variation of home bias across different hierarchical levels in German men's football. Based on an extensive dataset comprising 357,530 matches from the 2023/2024 season-collected via a Python script-the analysis includes match outcomes, attendance figures, club locations, and prior season standings across 165 divisions in 28 football associations. These leagues span 13 hierarchical levels, from professional to amateur football. The results show that home bias is significantly more pronounced in lower divisions. This effect manifests itself through a higher frequency of home wins, fewer draws, and greater sensitivity to travel distance in amateur divisions. In contrast, more professional leagues may benefit from standardised conditions, which mitigate home bias. Overall, the findings highlight the strong influence of professionalisation on competitive balance. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of how contextual factors shape match outcomes and demonstrates the need for differentiated analysis across league levels when examining behavioural biases in sports.

Suggested Citation

  • Böttger, Tom & Vischer, Lars, 2025. "Home bias in different German football leagues," Discussion Papers of the Institute for Organisational Economics 5/2025, University of Münster, Institute for Organisational Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:umiodp:319069
    DOI: 10.17879/73948674436
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/319069/1/1927574994.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17879/73948674436?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
    ---><---

    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. Starke Stephan & Vischer Lars & Dilger Alexander, 2024. "Change in Home Bias Due to Ghost Games in the NFL," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 244(5-6), pages 585-604.
    3. Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2021. "Social pressure in the stadiums: Do agents change behavior without crowd support?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    4. Vergin, Roger C. & Sosik, John J., 1999. "No place like home: an examination of the home field advantage in gambling strategies in NFL football," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 21-31, January.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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)," Other publications TiSEM aa76dfa7-73db-45d1-8c47-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Böttger, Tom & Vischer, Lars, 2026. "Home bias and referee bias in European football: The role of stoppage time allocation," Discussion Papers of the Institute for Organisational Economics 1/2026, University of Münster, Institute for Organisational Economics.

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Starke Stephan & Vischer Lars & Dilger Alexander, 2024. "Change in Home Bias Due to Ghost Games in the NFL," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 244(5-6), pages 585-604.
    4. Fabrizio Colella & Patricio S. Dalton & Giovanni Giusti, 2024. "Moral Support and Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(7), pages 4614-4628, July.
    5. Camilo Abbate & Jeffrey Cross & Richard Uhrig, 2025. "Video assistant referee and home field advantage: Implications for referee bias," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 91(3), pages 1176-1196, January.
    6. Böttger, Tom & Vischer, Lars, 2026. "Home bias and referee bias in European football: The role of stoppage time allocation," Discussion Papers of the Institute for Organisational Economics 1/2026, University of Münster, Institute for Organisational Economics.
    7. 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.
    8. Spilker Finn & Ötting Marius, 2024. "No cheering in the background? Individual performance in professional darts during COVID-19," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 20(3), pages 219-234.
    9. Thorsten Schank & Vivien Voigt & Christian Orthey, 2024. "During and after COVID-19: What happened to the home advantage in Germany's first football division?," Papers 2411.12509, arXiv.org.
    10. Chowdhury, Subhasish M. & Jewell, Sarah & Singleton, Carl, 2024. "Can awareness reduce (and reverse) identity-driven bias in judgement? Evidence from international cricket," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    11. Alex Farnell, 2023. "False Start? An Analysis of NFL Penalties With and Without Crowds," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(6), pages 695-716, August.
    12. Brad R. Humphreys & Alexander Marsella & Levi Perez, 2022. "The effect of monitoring and crowds on crime and law enforcement: A natural experiment from European football," Working Papers 22-08, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    13. 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.
    14. Zilong Li & Xidong Guo & Zuzanna Studnicka & Jiming Zhu, 2024. "Diminished Home Advantage in Chinese Basketball during COVID-19: The Role of Team Strength and Local Temperature," Working Papers 202408, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    15. 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.
    16. David Butler & Robert Butler & Carl Singleton, 2026. "Objective Calls Under the Spotlight: Referee Consistency and Behaviour on Football's Biggest Stage," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 27(2), pages 171-213, February.
    17. Carl Singleton & J. James Reade & Dominik Schreyer, 2023. "A decade of violence and empty stadiums in Egypt: when does emotion from the terraces affect behaviour on the pitch?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 65(3), pages 1487-1507, September.
    18. Michael Christian Leitner & Frank Daumann & Florian Follert & Fabio Richlan, 2023. "The cauldron has cooled down: a systematic literature review on home advantage in football during the COVID-19 pandemic from a socio-economic and psychological perspective," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 73(2), pages 605-633, June.
    19. Sergio Destefanis & Francesco Addesa & Giambattista Rossi, 2022. "The impact of COVID-19 on home advantage: a conditional order-m analysis of football clubs’ efficiency in the top-5 European leagues," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(58), pages 6639-6655, December.
    20. Justin Ehrlich & Joel Potter, 2023. "Estimating the effect of attendance on home advantage in the National Basketball Association," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(11), pages 1471-1482, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism
    • Z20 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - General
    • Z21 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - Industry Studies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:umiodp:319069. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ilmuede.html .

    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.