Weekly game probabilities are available now at the nytimes.com Fifth Down. This week I ponder the effect home field advantage when the Giants play "at" the Jets.
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Weekly game probabilities are available now at the nytimes.com Fifth Down. This week I ponder the effect home field advantage when the Giants play "at" the Jets.
Brian, so does your game probability include home field for the Jets or not? Either way, can you show the opposite scenario here in the comments?
I've been thinking about the Jets/Giants homefield thing for a couple weeks and trying to think of all the differences for the Giants from a normal home game.
- Are there three locker rooms at MetLife Stadium, one for the Giants, Jets, and visitors? Do the Giants get to use their normal home locker room?
- Does standing on the other sideline make any difference?
- Is the stadium really decorated differently between games?
- How will the crowd behave? Jets season ticket holders will be at the game, but how split will the stadium be compared to normal home and road games? How many individual fans root for both teams, and will that be offset by fans more incensed at the hometown rival?
I wish there was some way we could isolate the crowd effects from the home stadium effects, but that'd require many independent trials which is impossible.
A couple years ago the now missed PFR.com blog looked at home field advanteage, specifically for the Jets/Giants. They found that strength of HFA in the NFL corresponds with the visiting team's familiarity with the stadium -- is strongest when the visitor is from the other conference, weakest when from the same division, which corresponds with how often the visitor plays in the stadium.
The logical prediction from this is that HFA would be weakest of all for the Jets and Giants, because both conferences play in their stadium regularly, so there is never any "other conference visitor". And that was the fact. So it would seem there'd be no HFA at all between Jersey/A and Jersey/B when playing each other in Jersey. As not-shocking as this may be.
I read all this as being entirely consistent with your idea that HFA's "primary source is biological. It’s triggered by a general environmental familiarity that evolved over the eons."
same question as Boston Chris:
Does your game probability (Giants .56) include home field for the Jets or not? Either way, can you show the opposite scenario here in the comments?
The book scorecasting (http://www.amazon.com/Scorecasting-Hidden-Influences-Behind-Sports/dp/0307591808) has a much more plausible explanation of home field advantage. Their theory backed by stats is officiating bias because of huge home crowd. I highly recommend reading it.