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Abstract
Missing from the research on the home-field advantage (HFA) phenomenon in sports are the opinions of expert referees. Utilizing the actor–observer asymmetry (Jones & Nisbett, Citation1971) perspective, we surveyed elite NFL officials and fans in exploring the importance they attributed to factors associated with the HFA in American football. Results revealed that fans perceived themselves as more influential in biasing the officials to favor the home team, while officials perceived this influence as negligible Both fans and officials agreed that fans strongly influenced players’ performance. Also, fans thought that more games were decided by referees in error across different sports.
Notes
*Differ at p = .01. **Differ at p < .001.