IF YOUR team is moving to a plush new sports stadium, beware. The switch might just cost you the championship.
An analysis of professional baseball, basketball and ice hockey results in the US between 1987 and 2001 shows that changing grounds can have a dramatic effect on performance. Teams that moved lost on average 24 per cent of their home advantage (Journal of Sport Sciences, vol 20, p 969). “It’ll probably only cost you a couple of points, but in some sports, that can make a big difference,” says Richard Pollard at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, California.…
