Abstract
Evidence suggests that home advantage (HA) is present when home teams win over 50% of home games played. This studyinvestigated the effect of divisional status, season and team abilityon HA within Gealic football. The sample included 1973 matches from 32 teams over a 9-season period. HA was calculated based onthe number of points gained at home conveyed as a percentage of total points gained (Pollard and Pollard, 2005). A linear regression analysis was utilised to control for ability by adjusting HA (Pollardand Gómez, 2007). In this study, HA (57.4%) is present andsignificantly greater (P < 0.001) than the null value of 50%. HAwithin Gaelic football is comparable to other team-based sports.Despite a decline with the last decade, HA has stabilised andremains above the proposed 50%. Team ability would appear tohave a significant influence (P < 0.05) on HA, while season anddivisional status does not. Future research should investigatefurther causes of HA (i.e. crowd, travel and familiarity) includingtheir impact (if any) on HA within Gaelic games.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-9 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published (in print/issue) - 4 Oct 2018 |
Keywords
- Gaelic football
- Home advantage
- Divisional status
- Ability
- Season