question: Why does the home team have an advantage
comment: I think it's mostly down to familiarity with the environment and crowd support. Football (sigh, _soccer_) is a great example. Say you're playing a game at your home ground. Because you're so familiar with the pitch and the stands and the ad boards on the side and all the distances involved, you can focus on the task at hand. If you're the opposition team, even though all that stuff doesn't really factor into actually playing, it probably does take some part of subconscious real estate. You're not used to it, so you have to actively ignore all the unfamiliar stuff around you and focus extra hard on the game's flow. As for crowd support, well, you always feel better playing in front of fans. People urging you on, pushing you forward. In games like football, they can act as an extra player in the team, pretty much, shouting to tell you about someone approaching you for a tackle, asking for fouls, etc. This isn't based on anything substantial, it's just what I think happens.
passages: In most team sports, the home or hosting team is considered to have a significant advantage over the visitors. Due to this, many important games (such as playoff or elimination matches) in many sports have special rules for determining what match is played where. In association football, matches with two legs, one game played in each team's "home", are common. It is also common to hold important games at a neutral site, such as the Super Bowl, in which the location is determined years in advance. In many team sports in North America (including baseball, basketball, and ice hockey), playoff series are often held with a nearly equal number of games at each team's site. However, as it is usually beneficial to have an odd number of matches in a series (to prevent ties), the final home game is often awarded to the team that had the most success over the regular season.
   The term is also widely used in "best-of" playoff formats (e.g., best-of-seven) as being given to the team that is scheduled to play one more game at home than their opponent if all necessary games are played.
  
  In many sports, such designations may also apply to games played at a neutral site; as the rules of various sports make different provisions for home and visiting teams. In baseball, for instance, the team designated the home team bats second in each inning, whereas the "visiting" team bats first.
  
  Section::::Advantages.
   In team sports, the "home-field advantage" refers to the phenomenon where a team (usually the higher-seeded team) is given more home games than away games. This is seen in a best-of series by more games being played in one team's arena/stadium than the other, and in single-elimination tournaments by the single game being held in one team's stadium. In a best-of series, a team can "lose" their home advantage if the visiting team wins the first game. 
  
  A team can clinch the home-field advantage in a variety of ways:
  
  BULLET::::- Clinching the higher seed (MLB, NHL and NFL)
   There are many causes that attribute to home advantage, such as crowd involvement, travel considerations, and environmental factors. The most commonly cited factors of home advantage are usually factors which are difficult to measure and so even their existence is debated. Most of these are psychological in nature: the home teams are familiar with the playing venue; they can lodge in their homes, rather than in a hotel, and so have less far to travel before the game; and they have the psychological support of the home fans.
   In many sports, playoffs consist of a 'series' of games played between two teams. These series are usually a best-of-5 or best-of-7 format, where the first team to win 3 or 4 games, respectively, wins the playoff. Since these best-of series always involve an odd number of games, it is impossible to guarantee that an equal number of games will be played at each team's home venue. As a result, one team must be scheduled to have one more home game than the other. This team is said to have home-field advantage for that playoff series.
   The strength of the home advantage varies for different sports, regions, seasons, and divisions. For all sports, it seems to be strongest in the early period after the creation of a new league. The effect seems to have become somewhat weaker in some sports in recent decades.
   During the course of these playoff series, however, sports announcers or columnists will sometimes mention a team "gaining" or "losing" home-field advantage. This can happen after a visiting team has just won a game in the series. In playoff series format, the home-field advantage is said to exist for whichever team would win the series "if" all remaining games in the series are won by the home team "for that game". Therefore, it is possible for a visiting team to win a game and, hence, gain home-field advantage. This is somewhat similar to the concept of losing serve in tennis.
   In ice hockey, there are at least three distinct rule-related advantages for the home team. The first is referred to as "last change", where during stoppages of play, the home team is allowed to make player substitutions after the visiting team does. This allows the home team to obtain favorable player matchups. This rule makes the home team designation important even in games played on neutral ice. Traditionally, the second advantage was that when lining up for the face-off, the away team's centre always had to place his stick on the ice before the centre of the home team. However, in both the NHL and international rule sets, this now applies only for face-offs at the centre-ice spot; when a face-off takes place anywhere else on the ice, the defending centre has to place his stick first. The centre who is allowed to place his stick last gains the ability to time the face-off better and gives him greater odds of winning it. The third advantage is that the home team has the benefit of choosing whether to take the first or second attempt in a shootout.
   Neutral-venue matches may arise out of necessity. For example, on December 12, 2010, the roof of the Minnesota Vikings' stadium, the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome collapsed due to a snowstorm. The Vikings were supposed to play against the New York Giants at the stadium the next day. The game was moved to the Detroit Lions' stadium, Ford Field. The following week, the Vikings' "Monday Night Football" game against the Chicago Bears was moved to the University of Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium. 
   However, in the playoffs, home advantage is usually given to the team with the higher seed (which may or may not have the better record), as is case in the NFL, MLB, and NHL playoffs. One exception to this was MLB's World Series, which between 2003 and 2016, awarded home-field advantage to the team representing the league which won the All-Star Game that year, to help raise interest in the All-Star Game after a tie in 2002 (before 2003, home-field advantage alternated each year between the National League and the American League). The NBA is the only league that has home-court advantage based solely on which team has the best record (using various tiebreakers to settle the question should the teams finish with identical records). 
   Other factors, however, are easier to detect and can have noticeable effects on the outcome of the game. In American football, for instance, the crowd often makes as much noise as it can when the visiting team is about to run a play. That can make it very difficult for the visiting team's quarterback to call audible play changes, or for any player to hear the snap count. In contrast, the crowd is often quiet while the home team is on offense, and that enables the quarterback to use the hard count intended to draw the defense offsides as the defense can hear the hard count. In basketball, when a visiting player is making a free throw, home fans behind the backboard typically wave their arms or other objects in an attempt to break the visiting player's focus on making the shot. Environmental factors such as weather and altitude are easy to measure, yet their effects are debatable, as both teams have to play in the same conditions; but the home team may be more acclimated to local conditions with difficult environments, such as extremely warm or cold weather, or high altitude (such as the case of Denver teams, as well as the Mexico national football team, many of whose home matches are played in Mexico City).
   In some cup competitions, (for example the FA Cup in all rounds prior to the semi-final), home advantage is determined by a random drawing. However, if the initial match is drawn (tied), home advantage for the replay is given to the other team.
  
  Section::::Neutral venues.
   An extreme example of home advantage was the 2013 Nigeria Premier League; each of the 20 teams lost at most 3 of 19 home matches and won at most 3 of 19 away matches. Paul Doyle ascribed this to visiting teams' facing "violent crowds, questionable refereeing and [...] [a]rriving just before kick-off after long road trips, often on hazardous surfaces".
  
  Section::::Advantages.:Causes.:Factors related to the game rules.
   As an example, in the 1982 NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers played the Philadelphia 76ers, with the 76ers having earned home court advantage because of a better regular season record. Four games were scheduled to be played in Philadelphia, while three were scheduled in Los Angeles. If the home team were to win each game, then the 76ers would have won four games, the Lakers would have won three games, and the 76ers would have won the series, so we say that Philadelphia had the home-court advantage. However, the visiting Lakers won Game 1. Los Angeles now had one win, and there were three games remaining at each arena. The home team went on to win all of the remaining games in that series, so Los Angeles won four games, while Philadelphia won two (Game 7, which would have been played in Philadelphia, was be omitted, as even if the 76ers won, they'd still lose the series 4 games to 3). Since the Lakers would win the series in such a scenario, it is said that they have taken home-court advantage away from the 76ers.
   Each team may rotate the opposing team's building in an attempt to make the building more vulnerable to the fans.
  
  "The Result:" 
  
  Both teams construct buildings that partially blow off, but neither team's pig flies off, no matter how much power is applied to the fans, and the challenge is called a draw.
  
  Second Challenge: 
   "Sports Illustrated", in a 17 January 2011 article, reported that home crowds, rigor of travel for visiting teams, scheduling, and unique home field characteristics, "were not" factors in giving home teams an advantage. The journal concluded that it was favorable treatment by game officials and referees that conferred advantages on home teams. They stated that sports officials are unwittingly and psychologically influenced by home crowds and the influence is significant enough to affect the outcomes of sporting events in favor of the home team.
   How home-field advantage is administered to a traveling team in baseball varies by league. In the case of the Atlantic League, the Road Warriors never received home-field advantage in any game. In Major League Baseball, a team is guaranteed "designated home team" status for half of its scheduled games. Home-field advantage is particularly important in baseball, as the designated home team always bats second.
   In team sports, the term home advantage – also called home ground, home field, home-field advantage, home court, home-court advantage, defender's advantage or home-ice advantage – describes the benefit that the home team is said to gain over the visiting team. This benefit has been attributed to psychological effects supporting fans have on the competitors or referees; to psychological or physiological advantages of playing near home in familiar situations; to the disadvantages away teams suffer from changing time zones or climates, or from the rigors of travel; and, in some sports, to specific rules that favor the home team directly or indirectly. In baseball, in particular, the difference may also be the result of the home team having been assembled to take advantage of the idiosyncrasies of the home ballpark, such as the distances to the outfield walls; most other sports are played in standardized venues.
   For certain sporting events, home advantage may be removed by use of a neutral venue. This may be a national stadium that is not a home stadium to any club (for example Wembley Stadium hosts the FA Cup Final and semi-finals). Alternatively the neutral venue may be the home stadium of another club, such as was used historically to stage FA Cup semi-finals.
   For the 1992–93 and 1993–94 seasons, the National Hockey League scheduled neutral site games. Each team played 41 home games, 41 road games, and 2 games at neutral sites (for a total of 84 games). Each club played one neutral site game as the designated home team and one as the designated road team. The neutral site games were eliminated starting with the 1995–96 season, which reduced the regular season to 82 games per team.
   Section::::Gaining or losing home-field advantage.
  
  During the regular season for a sport, in the interest of fairness, schedulers try to ensure that each team plays an equal number of home and away games. Thus, having home-field advantage for any particular regular-season game is largely due to random chance. (This is only true for fully organized leagues with structured schedules; for a counterexample, college football schedules often have an imbalance in which the most successful and largest teams can negotiate more home appearances than mid-majors, a situation that was also prevalent in the early, disorganized years of the National Football League).
   Section::::Miscellaneous.
  
  In any context where a game score or the pair of teams meeting in a game are mentioned, the team mentioned first (left or top) is the home team, except in the United States and Canada, and to a lesser extent, Japan, where home teams are mentioned second. The North American and Japanese practice of listing the home team second likely derives from baseball, in which the home team bats after the visiting team in each inning.
   When two teams of equal quality play, the team at home tends to win more often. The size of the effect changes based on the era of play, game type, season length, sport, even number of time zones crossed. But across all conditions, "simply playing at home increases the chances of winning." A win away from home is therefore seen more favorably than a win at home, because it was more challenging. Home advantage (which, for sports played on a pitch, is almost always called "home field advantage") is also based on the qualities of the individual stadium and crowd; the advantage in the NFL can be more than a 4-point difference from the stadium with the least advantage to the stadium with the most.
   BULLET::::- The season's largest differential between home and road records was that of the San Antonio Spurs. Their home record was only one game worse than that of the Rockets and Raptors, at 33–8, but their road record was 14–27. The Spurs had 70% of their wins at home, and 77% of their losses were away.
  
  BULLET::::- The only team with a better record on the road than at home was the Phoenix Suns, who had the worst record in the league at 21–61. Their home and road records were separated by only one game (10–31 home, 11–30 away).
   BULLET::::- An especially anomalous home/away split was that of the Houston Astros, whose 103–59 record was second-best in MLB. They were 11 games better on the road than at home (46–35 home, 57–24 away). Of their wins, 44.6% were at home, while 40.7% of their losses were away.
  
  Section::::By competition.:Basketball.
  
  In the 2017–18 NBA regular season, the home team won 712 games (58%), and the away team won 518 games (42%).
  