How the home team advantage is lost when no one's watching
What difference does banning spectators from pandemic-era sports matches make? Quite a bit, concludes new research. First, fewer people catch Covid-19. A US study on basketball and ice hockey games finds one big indoor match before bans increased deaths by a staggering 9% in nearby areas. No shock, Sherlock – but, remember, we packed 251,000 people into Cheltenham race course during that same period of early March.
Less life-and-death research shows that playing spectator-less football matches has other impacts: it changes the course of matches themselves. Using data from 6,481 matches played before and after the mid-season shutdown in 17 countries, it finds that the removal of fans reduces home advantage by narrowing the gap in the number of yellow cards for away teams compared with home teams by a third. Why? Fan absence lessens pressure on referees to punish away teams more harshly.
This proves two things. First, there’s nothing about football we men (the study has five authors, all male) don’t delight in. Second, that figures of authority respond to short-term pressures. Ultimately, booking numbers are neither here nor there, but such biases can cost lives. Think of the national disgrace of Covid deaths in underprepared care homes into which we actively pushed patients to empty hospitals. Part of the reason? The NHS has the fans that our care homes too often, tragically, lack.
• Torsten Bell is chief executive of the Resolution Foundation. Read more at resolutionfoundation.org