Do Fans Impact Sports Outcomes? A COVID-19 Natural Experiment∗

ABSTRACT: This paper studies the effect of fan attendance on home field advantage in top European soccer leagues. We exploit exogenous variation in the level of fan attendance driven by COVID-19 mitigation policies and find that the home field advantage, as measured by home minus away (expected) goals, is reduced by more than 50% across the English Premier League, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, and Spanish La Liga. This leads to a decrease in probability for a home win, indicating that these goals are pivotal with respect to match outcomes.

SUBMITTER: Cross J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9121146 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature