Quick response. What college football team has a great advantage in the stadium? Basketball team that the university has a great advantage of field in your field? I guess that football teams can be chosen as LSU at Tiger Stadium, Virginia Tech at Lane Stadium, Florida, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium or USC in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. For basketball, maybe you picked Duke in Cameron Indoor Coliseum, Allen Fieldhouse Kansas, Kentucky, Rupp Arena, or North Carolina at the Dean Dome.

If you answered one, you certainly are not alone. Each year, many lists are generated and published that identify teams that have a great advantage. These lists have titles such as "hard to play in the" or "ten toughest places play "and that describe computers that have outstanding advantage. The teams I mentioned above are constantly on top of those lists. Even if these are not what you think, which reflects very well what you are, right? Actually, no, they are not.

Rupp Arena is the Kentucky Wildcats to an advantage over other teams playing college basketball at home? LSU Tigers are more successful in football at home than outside, compared to other teams? The answer is "no." In fact, Kentucky Basketball, LSU football, and the other teams listed above have something in common, but not the advantage. What they have in common is who make a lot at home and abroad. That is, they are very good teams.

However, home court advantage is not how you win at home. That may well be only an indicator of how good a team they are. True home court advantage is so much to win at home versus how much they win out. The greater the difference, greater the advantage that it can be attributed to playing at home.

To compare the hype and the facts, I use data from ten seasons, 1998-2007, which analyzed each home and in match played in the MLB, NBA and NFL, and college versions of these sports in five major conferences (SEC, ACC, Pac-10, Big Ten and Big 12). When actual data used to calculate field advantage for teams from 57 universities in the five conferences that analyze, not one of the eight teams I just mentioned even was in the top 25 of the 57 teams. The hype and the facts are, pardon the pun, even in the same stadium.

By Tom D. Freijo, Ph.D.

Sports Lit – “The Best in Sports Literature” http://www.SportsLit.net
Featuring: Not in Our House! A Decade of Home Court Advantage in American Sports

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