The Effect of Empty Stadia on Home Field Advantage

While the “bubble” formats have effectively neutralized home court (or ice), MLB teams are still logging miles across the country. An interesting piece from Fan Graphs takes a look at early returns on MLB, where it kinda-sorta looks like empty stadiums are neutralizing home field advantage a bit. Reminds me of this interesting piece from ESPN, which examines two historical drops in home court advantage: the rise of chartered air travel and the changing landscape of digital hook-up culture. In short, the author suggests that not having to go out to bars and nightclubs to meet romantic partners has lead to better rested players. As I said, interesting.

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