The Effect of Fans on Sport
While you can “take [yourself] out to the ball game” and “root, root, root for the home team”, will it really alter the game’s outcome (Norworth and Von Tilzer, 1908)? Many sports fans, as well as sports literature, believe that fans’ stadium presence with their team, wearing the team’s colours and chanting the player’s names, have a large role in the final outcome of the game (Schwartz and Barsky, 1977). This is known as home advantage and is due to a mixture of fans’ supportive presence on players, and their influencing of officials favoring the home team (Nevill, A. and Holder, R., 1999; Schwartz and Barsky, 1977). The common belief is that fan presence is the largest contributing factor to home advantage, however, recent research suggests that it may not have as large of an effect as originally believed (Gershgoren, 2022).
To investigate this, I gathered current Major League Baseball data of both home and away games of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team from the last three seasons (ESPN, 2020; ESPN, 2021; ESPN, 2022); of which the 2020 season was played with no fans in attendance, the 2021 season was played with a half-capacity stadium, and the 2022 season was played with a full stadium (Table 1). Primarily, it is important to note the clear home advantage trend present, as the team has a notably higher win percentage when playing at home each season. Moreover, it can be noted that fan presence caused a slight increase in home advantage, with the largest home advantage effect seen in the 2021 season. However, due to how small the difference was between the seasons with a full stadium and with no fans, a less than 0.05% difference in win percentages, we can conclude that fan presence is likely not the main cause of home advantage. Proving, that while the presence of fans has a slight positive effect on team performance, home advantage is likely formed because of a combination of different factors, including fan presence.
Table 1: Overview of wins, losses, the total number of games played, and win percentages of Toronto Blue Jays homeland away games over the 2020, 2021, and 2022 seasons. Overall, home advantage is apparent, as the win percentages for all three seasons are higher when playing at home. However, there was no clear, consistent trend noted between win percentage and fan presence aside from a slight, nearly inconsequential increase when fans are in the building. Statistics were taken as of September 7th, 2022. Game statistics for the 2022 season will continue to change over the remainder of the season, however, this remains a snapshot of the currently available data (ESPN, 2020; ESPN, 2021; ESPN, 2022).
Similar to the above findings, Chiu and Chang (2022) used statistical analysis to show that fans’ effect on home advantage in baseball is not a (pun intended) game changer (Chiu and Chang, 2022). They used a one-way ANOVA analysis where ‘home wins’ was the dependent, and ‘year’ was the independent variable. The study also took into account factors that I was not able to, specifically the difference in home advantage for teams with larger or more supportive fan bases. At the conclusion of their analyses, Chiu and Chang (2022) determined that there was no real home advantage present between the fan-filled seasons and the fan-less season.
Interestingly, Schwartz and Barsky (1977) noted that the effects of home advantage are most apparent in indoor sports such as basketball and hockey. Thus, the trend noted by Chiu and Chang (2022) as well as investigated using Toronto Blue Jays game statistics, could be negligible due to the outdoor sports environment. In support, a separate study found that the home advantage remained, albeit to a reduced degree, in the absence of fans for an indoor soccer league (Figure 1) (Arboix-Alió et al., 2021).
Figure 1: bar graph showing the win percentage of Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian soccer teams for home games in the presence (blue), and in the absence (orange) of fans. A trend can be noted where fans have a positive effect on the team’s outcome (Arboix-Alió et al., 2021).
This proves that home advantage is affected by fans, but not to the expected degree. What other factors are leading to this overall home advantage then? Aside from fan presence, many factors, such as team travel, game rules, and environmental familiarity, all play a role in the performance of players, the rulings of officials, and ultimately the outcome of each game (Nevill and Holder, 1999). However, it is the combination of all of these factors that actually cause home advantage. So, while you may not be the largest factor causing your team to win, you definitely play a role. So grab your jersey, learn the cheers, and go support your team!
References
Arboix-Alió, J., Trabal, G., Buscà, B., Peña, J., Arboix, A. and Hileno, R., 2021. The Behaviour of Home Advantage during the COVID-19 Pandemic in European Rink Hockey Leagues. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(1), p.228. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19010228.
Chiu, Y.-C. and Chang, C.-K., 2022. Major League Baseball during the COVID-19 pandemic: does a lack of spectators affect home advantage? Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 9(1), pp.1–6. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01193-6.
Gershgoren, L., Levental, O. and Basevitch, I., 2022. Home Advantage Perceptions in Elite Handball: A Comparison Among Fans, Athletes, Coaches, and Officials. Frontiers in Psychology, [online] Available at: <https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.782129> [Accessed 12 September 2022].
Nevill, A. and Holder, R., 1999. Home advantage in sport: an overview of studies on the advantage of playing at home. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 28, pp.221–36.
Norworth, J. and Von Tilzer, A., 1908. Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Available at: <https://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_stmo.shtml> [Accessed 12 September 2022].
Schwartz, B. and Barsky, S.F., 1977. The Home Advantage. Social Forces, 55(3), pp.641–661. https://doi.org/10.2307/2577461.
ESPN, 2020. Toronto Blue Jays Baseball – Blue Jays News, Scores, Stats, Rumors & More | ESPN. 2020 [online] Available at: <https://www.espn.com/mlb/team/_/name/tor/toronto-blue-jays> [Accessed 12 September 2022].
ESPN, 2021. Toronto Blue Jays Baseball – Blue Jays News, Scores, Stats, Rumors & More | ESPN. 2021 [online] Available at: <https://www.espn.com/mlb/team/_/name/tor/toronto-blue-jays> [Accessed 12 September 2022].
ESPN, 2022. Toronto Blue Jays Baseball – Blue Jays News, Scores, Stats, Rumors & More | ESPN. 2022 [online] Available at: <https://www.espn.com/mlb/team/_/name/tor/toronto-blue-jays> [Accessed 12 September 2022].
Comments
7 Responses to “Do I Help My Sports Team Win?”
Hi iSci!
I came up with this blog post idea a few weeks ago after working a Blue Jays game at the Rogers Centre and feeling the clear shift among fans as the playoff season approaches. If anyone has anyone been to a sports event, feeling the atmosphere with fans in the building all cheering for their team is electrifying. This is especially prevalent as the post-season approaches. This led me to wonder, how much effect do fans have on the outcome of a sporting game? By integrating aspects of statistics that we learned throughout second year (PAIx), hinting at potential psychological ties, in addition to my own experimental investigations and my summer experience working at the Rogers Centre, I created this post. I hope you all enjoy and I am happy to hear all of your feedback.
– Sarah 🙂
Hi Sarah,
I loved this post! It was super engaging and I loved the way were integrated iSci material with something you get to see firsthand many nights! Overall I think your post was very well written and I only have a few suggestions.
– In the second paragraph when you are talking about the different seasons, I would just write it as “the 202X season” instead of having the year in brackets. This is more of a personal preference but I think it flows a bit better.
– This is super super picky but there seems to be a double space in the third paragraph so just make sure you go through your post super carefully. (analyses, Chiu and Chang)
– I believe table captions should be placed above the table not below
Great job again and I’m looking forward to reading your final edits
Maia
Hi Maia,
Thanks for your comment and notes! I worked with your ideas and managed to make some adjustments.
Thanks again,
Sarah
Hi Sarah,
Very cool post! I’m not into baseball, but I love how multidisciplinary this discussion is and how relatable it is. Below are a couple of notes I made while reading.
– I know table 1 was made by you but I do think that a ESPN citation should be located somewhere in the figure caption since the data does not belong to you.
– Caption for tables should go at the top rather than the bottom.
– Double-check your references, I don’t think full names are to be included in Anglia Ruskin: Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer, 1908. Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Available at: [Accessed 12 September 2022].
– I would recommend relocating this sentence: This proves that home advantage is affected by fans to some degree, but not as much as initially believed. What other factors are leading to this overall home advantage then? to the beginning of the last paragraph. I think finishing on a question then having the figure appear is confusing and led me off track.
Overall, great work with great integration of topics. Looking forward to reading the final.
Best,
Bianca
Hi Bianca,
Thanks so much for your comments. I managed to fix the caption and citations – thanks for catching those! I also took your recommendation about moving that final sentence.
Thanks again,
Sarah
Hi Sarah,
I thought this post was an interesting and creative way to apply stats concepts learned in iSci to your personal interests. Here are a couple small suggestions:
-Throughout you post, you have written “fans effect” and similar phrases. I believe you need an apostrophe after fans to indicate the effect is caused by the fans (ie fans’ effect).
-In your third paragraph, “dependant” should be “dependent”
-In paragraph 3, you write “At the conclusion of their analyses, Chiu and Chang (2022) determined that there was no real home advantage in the fan-filled seasons than in the fan-less season.” This sentence could be improved by being more specific about the conclusion made by Chiu and Chang that indicated there was no home advantage. I believe you are trying to say that there was no significant difference between home advantage in the fan-filled vs fan-less seasons, but it would be beneficial to clarify the wording here.
-You may wish to revisit the following sentence and consider changing the term “insignificant” to another term unless you are referring to statistical significance. “Thus, the trend noted by Chiu and Chang (2022) as well as investigated using Toronto Blue Jays game statistics, could be insignificant due to the outdoor sport environment and not solely the presence of fans.”
-The figure you chose for Figure 1 is a good figure to illustrate the data, but it appears to be missing a y-axis label; consider adding one to the image yourself
Great job with this post! Happy editing 🙂
Jessica
Hi Jessica,
Thanks for your comments! I took your advice and clarified the wording for some of those sections, as for the figure the original figure was also lacking a y-axis so I am going to see if I can find a separate figure to illustrate my point.
Thanks again,
Sarah