Gershgoren Lael, Levental Orr, Basevitch Itay
School of Behavioral Sciences, The College of Management Academic Studies, Rishon LeTsiyon, Israel.
Department of Physical Education, Tel Hai College, Upper Galilee, Israel.
Front Psychol. 2022 Jan 24;12:782129. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.782129. eCollection 2021.
Home advantage in sports has been extensively researched in the academic literature over the past five decades. A review of the literature reveals several factors that consistently underly this phenomenon. One of the most documented is the home crowd effect. While the crowd effect on the results has been widely researched considering noise, size, and density, there are conflicting findings of the effect and its extent. Furthermore, the perceptions of fans, athletes, coaches, and officials of the causes of home advantage in general and the crowd effect in particular, remain marginal. This is especially important in the face of significant regulation changes in the stands caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The current study, therefore, examined the perceptions of fans, athletes, coaches, and officials of the Israeli handball premier league regarding fans' contribution to the home advantage phenomenon along with other factors (e.g., travel and officiating). A questionnaire examining perceptions regarding home advantage was distributed to 232 Israeli participants (117 fans, 59 players, 26 coaches, and 30 officials). Results, based on MANOVA, ANOVA, and post-hoc analyses, indicated significant differences in participants' perceptions of the different factors in general and the crowd factor in particular. Overall, the crowd was perceived as the most important factor contributing to the home advantage phenomenon ( = 5.7). Furthermore, fans perceived their contribution (i.e., the crowd) significantly higher than the rest of the participants ( = 0.001; i.e., players, coaches, and officials). On the other hand, officials ranked their contribution to the home advantage effect as low as well as significantly under ranked their contribution in comparison to the other groups ( < 0.001). This result suggests that officials perceive themselves as relatively robust to the crowd effect compared to the other participants. Additional results are discussed in light of existing gaps in the literature on the home advantage phenomenon. Alongside the theoretical contribution, these findings contribute to applied implications of increasing the home advantage effect when playing at home and negating the home advantage when playing away.
在过去的五十年里，体育比赛中的主场优势在学术文献中得到了广泛研究。对文献的回顾揭示了几个始终构成这一现象基础的因素。其中记载最多的一个因素是主场观众效应。虽然考虑到噪音、规模和密度，观众对比赛结果的影响已得到广泛研究，但关于这种影响及其程度的研究结果存在冲突。此外，球迷、运动员、教练和官员对主场优势的成因，特别是观众效应的看法，仍然较为有限。鉴于新冠疫情导致看台上的规定发生重大变化，这一点尤为重要。因此，本研究调查了以色列手球超级联赛的球迷、运动员、教练和官员对球迷对主场优势现象的贡献以及其他因素（如旅行和裁判）的看法。一份关于主场优势看法的问卷被分发给232名以色列参与者（117名球迷、59名球员、26名教练和30名官员）。基于多变量方差分析、方差分析和事后分析的结果表明，参与者对不同因素，特别是观众因素的看法存在显著差异。总体而言，观众被认为是导致主场优势现象的最重要因素（=5.7）。此外，球迷认为他们（即观众）的贡献显著高于其他参与者（=0.001；即球员、教练和官员）。另一方面，官员们将他们对主场优势效应的贡献排在很低的位置，并且与其他群体相比，他们的贡献排名也显著较低（<0.001）。这一结果表明，与其他参与者相比，官员们认为自己对观众效应的抵抗力相对较强。根据关于主场优势现象的现有文献空白，对其他结果进行了讨论。除了理论贡献外，这些发现有助于在主场比赛时增强主场优势效应以及在客场比赛时消除主场优势的实际应用。
