A LONGITUDINAL INVESTIGATION OF CROWD DENSITY AND THE HOME COURT PHENOMENON IN THE WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION

Authors

  • Spencer Orton Southern Utah University, Department of Kinesiology and Outdoor Recreation, Cedar City, UT, USA
  • Paul Maggio Southern Utah University, Department of Kinesiology and Outdoor Recreation, Cedar City, UT, USA
  • Mark DeBeliso Southern Utah University, Department of Kinesiology and Outdoor Recreation, Cedar City, UT, USA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46827/ejpe.v8i6.4392

Keywords:

WNBA, statistics, box scores

Abstract

The home team advantage has been extensively documented and studied in many team sports, especially men’s basketball leagues. In contrast, research that has examined the home court advantage in women’s basketball leagues could not be found. Therefore, this study was designed to answer the following questions: (1) is the home court advantage present in the woman’s national basketball association (WNBA)? (2) is there a relationship between crowd density and referee bias in favor of the home team in the national woman’s basketball league? (3) is there a relationship between crowd density and home team performance in the woman’s national basketball league? The study at hand employed a longitudinal study approach to examine 5 regular seasons (2015-2019) of 10 WNBA teams. Data for fan attendance, sport arena capacity, and box scores were collected from public domains. Statistical calculations and analysis were used to compare chosen box scores between the home team and away team. Similarly, chosen box scores were compared between home games that had a crowd density above 50% and home games that had a crowd density below 50%. The results of this study showed that the home court advantage was present in the woman’s national basketball league. In contrast to research studies that examined referee bias in men’s basketball leagues, the results of this study are conflicting and inconclusive. However, home games that had crowd density above 50% significantly outperformed home games that had crowed density below 50%, both offensively (p=0.003) and defensively (p=0.002).

 

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Author Biographies

  • Spencer Orton, Southern Utah University, Department of Kinesiology and Outdoor Recreation, Cedar City, UT, USA

    Spencer Orton, MSc earned his Masters of Science degree at Southern Utah University. He is currently a Physical Education Specialist for Granite School District in Utah, USA. His research interests include physical education pedagogy, and sport in society.

  • Paul Maggio, Southern Utah University, Department of Kinesiology and Outdoor Recreation, Cedar City, UT, USA

    Paul Maggio, MSc CSCS earned his Masters of Science degree at Utah State University. He is currently a Lecturer in the Kinesiology and Outdoor Recreation Department at Southern Utah University. The courses Paul instructs include Physical Education and Olympic Style lifting for sport performance. His research interests include physical education pedagogy, coaching leadership, and sport performance development.

  • Mark DeBeliso, Southern Utah University, Department of Kinesiology and Outdoor Recreation, Cedar City, UT, USA

    Mark DeBeliso, PhD FACSM earned his Doctoral degree from Oregon State University.

    He is currently a Professor and Graduate Program Director at Southern Utah University. His research interests include: orthopaedic biomechanics, mechanics and metabolics of sport movements and work tasks, strength training for all walks of life, and masters athletes. orcid.org/0000-0001-6479-7918

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Published

2022-08-02

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 6 (2022)

Section

Articles

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