Is home-field advantage driven by the fans? Evidence from across the ocean

Abstract

Some have claimed that referee and home-field bias in football (American soccer) have been impacted by the fans at the match. When fans are hostile, the threat referees feel to their health and well-being influences their ability to call a fair match. We analyse two leagues with differing fan types: one ‘hostile’ league (Germany’s Bundesliga) and one league perceived as ‘peaceful’ (America’s Major League Soccer). Although there is a strong home-field bias inherent in football, we find evidence that part of the bias is due to the prospect of fan violence.

Keywords:

• social pressure
• soccer
• football
• home-field advantage
• referee bias

JEL Classification:

• L10
• L83
• J70
• D81

Notes

¹ The main focus, the impact of yellow and red cards, is found to have similar impacts in both the Bundesliga (Anders and Rotthoff, 2011) and the English Premier League (Jewell, 2009).

² When using percentage attendance, attendance is not significant, which is why we do the robustness check.