how does home court advantage work
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There’s a few reasons.
1. The team doesn’t have to travel. Travel can drain a team and cut into the amount of time they have to practice and prepare. Often times the visiting team has to stay in a hotel, so they aren’t getting as good a sleep as they would be if they go to sleep in their home and bed.
2. Even though the court is the same dimensions in every stadium, that doesn’t mean you aren’t more familiar with your home court. If you look at the different teams courts, they all have different wood patterns and colors. Also the lighting, the stadium seating layout, the sound system, etc. As minimal as it sounds, those little things can affect your performance.
3. The home crowd plays a factor. When the opponent has the ball (especially in the most important and clutch situations) the home crowd generally gets loud and chants to distract the opposing team..making it harder for them to hear and communicate with each other. Also, if you ever watch a visiting team shooting free throws, every one in the crowd behind the basket is always going crazy (a lot of times waving towels etc), to try and distract the shooter.
In American football, the crowd is a huge factor. When the stadium holds 70k+ people and 60k of them are for the home team, they will make a ton of noise when the visitors are on offense. The noise effects play calling and snap counts, which alter timing of plays.
But when the home team is on the field, those 60k are quiet with the visitor section being noisy. That is not nearly as loud. Allows the home team to play more to their style and play better without outside interference.
College football is where it’s very prevalent.
Also, in baseball for example some parks are weirdly shaped (like Fenway) and playing in them regularly does give a player a better idea of how things may play out.
Think about how you feel when you’re complimented. When someone criticizes you but then two other people come to your defense. Isn’t it amazing? Really makes your day, doesn’t it? Whatever happens later in the day, you’re likely to feel more confident and do better at it.
Think about how feel when someone insults you, or criticizes you unfairly. Then think about if it’s two people, and you feel ganged up, and lose self-confidence. Then you have to try to do something, aren’t you less likely to succeed, having had your confidence deflated?
Now imagine these feelings, but instead of one or two people, it’s thousands, yelling about it… constantly… for an hour, while you have to push your body to perform at the highest level.
There is no “actual” advantage. But just like when you or I have to go somewhere new, stay in a hotel room, go to an office your not familiar with or a new location, its just not the same as being at home. Dressing in your own locker room, walking your hallways and playing on your court that your intimately familiar with, there’s a “my house” outlook.
In sports the crowd is also a huge part of your momentum. Opponents on a streak get the boos and distracting gestures/taunting. Home team on streak get chants, hype, motivation, etc.
It’s all just psychological, but you can’t deny its affect on the players and thus the game.
When economists studied it, they found that the referees (using football match data) [slightly favored the home team](https://freakonomics.com/2011/12/football-freakonomics-how-advantageous-is-home-field-advantage-and-why/) likely due to the large crowd’s reactions to their calls, with meaningful differences that depended on how physically close or distant the crowd was from the playing field.
Also, in US sports, time zone differences seem to be a component (east coast teams going to the west coast perform noticeably less well than visitors whose games are in the same time zone or western teams heading east).
The fans are on your side, so you have better morale. You feel at home, in a place you are comfortable. You don’t have to travel and potentially get Jetlagged. You get to sleep in your own bed where you sleep the best.
American sports Championships are generally played as a best of 7 series. Based on your performance in the league table during the regular season, whoever has the better record between the two teams gets to play up to 4 games in their home city and up to 3 in the opponent’s city. The extra home game and the related benefits of having your own fans, familiar gameday experiences, sleeping in your own bed the night before etc etc is generally considered home court advantage.
First advantage is the fans. People are more likely to show up and support you in a home game since they don’t need to go as far. Having people cheer for you is a pretty strong motivator to play harder. The fans can also be distracting for the away team.
Second advantage is you’re probably playing in a place you’ve practiced on. While there are standards for fields and courts, there’s still going to be some variation in the lighting or on the court/field texture and bounce that you’re going to be more familiar with than the opponent. This is especially true for outdoor sports where weather plays a role since you’re used to that weather.
Third advantage is travel. Sitting on a bus for hours, flying on a plane to a new time zone, or sleeping in a new area is going to drain you a little bit when compared to sleeping at home in your own bed. So the away team probably isn’t as well rested as the home team.
Covid showed that the presence of or a lack of home fans has a pretty negligible effect on football results. From a study of 63 professional football leagues worldwide it was found that from January 2015 to March 2020, home teams won 44.3% of matches in the leagues surveyed. After the outbreak of the pandemic and the closure of stadiums to the public, this figure went slightly down to 42.2%.
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