IS THERE A HOME FIELD DISADVANTAGE IN PROFESSIONAL SPORTS CHAMPIONSHIPS?

Abstract

Recent research has suggested that home teams tend to lose decisive championship games in professional sport. We present data, which suggests that this result is only true for championship series involving the New York Yankees, the Boston Celtics and the Montreal Canadiens. We argue that the home audiences of recurrent champions expect their teams to win. This pressure is communicated to the members of recurrent championship teams, and is the source of their performance decrements in decisive championship contents.