Heh, when my son played t-ball I would cheer for him and “lightly boo” a friend’s son who was on another team. He reciprocated.
A lot of that is all in good fun. But I refereed soccer games for many years at many levels. Several times I saw fistfights on the field. Usually groups of parents.
Or it could be fun. Lighten up, Francis.
Well, why not let the referees on the fun? It’s more profitable not to be impartial. And the home crowd likes it better too. Good for sales.
I’m starting to get a serious “explain this normal human behavior to me as if I’m an alien” vibe.
Sometimes normal human behavior is tacky, juvenile, and embarrassing.
I just watched Bad News Bears with the kid and this thread reminds me a bit of the trophy presentation at the end of the movie. The champs have a trophy that 3 kids can barely hold aloft, and the runners up have a tiny little cup that is in danger of flying away in a stiff breeze.
It’s played for laughs, we’re going to celebrate this team like they just conquered the USSR, and this other team, that is on the same field playing the same game, like we needed to scrape them off our shoe.
The unequal introductions that are normal today wouldn’t need to change much to have that comical feel.
“Look, I know you guys usually wear the dark coloured uniform on the road. But the crowd would really like it if you put on these poorly fitting stripey ones. Whattaya say?”
Because that impacts the game on the field. Introductions do not.
Okay, so if it impacts the game it is a step too far. Does stacking the stadium impact the game?
Hocky, baseball, basketball all play series with alternating home and away. Football plays it’s championship in a neutral field. It seems like you’re picking an arbitrary point in time to judge. The Superbowl is very even in it’s introductions because its a neutral field. Hocky, baseball, and basketball are very even in their introductions because they play series.
I just saw the one game, so I could not say if the gesture was reciprocated. That is a fair point, but I reserve my right to deem it tacky.
And, as mentioned above, you’d find the same thing for the Olympics and World Cup. The fans may cheer louder for the host nation if they’re playing in a particular game but the announcer will be neutral.
For example in ice hockey, the goal horn only goes off for the home team scoring in the NHL. In Olympic ice hockey, the goal horn goes off for both teams scoring goals
You could probably find out, if you were curious enough. Take the Chicago Cubs (doesn’t have to be the Cubs, just an example). Look at the Cubs’ record in road games in places like Atlanta, Texas, Seattle, where their fans are likely to be relatively scarce. Then look at the Cubs’ record in St. Louis or Milwaukee, where their fans are ubiquitous. Is there a difference in these records? Do they consistently do better on the road against the Cardinals and Brewers than against the Braves and the Rangers? (Of course you’d have to control for the relative qualities of those teams…) If so, then keeping their fans from attending the road games might impact the game on the field.
My guess is that you would find it difficult to demonstrate any such connection, but I don’t know for sure. You could certainly study the question, though.
One personal and recent anecdote, regarding civility: I attended Game 3 of last year’s World Series is Philadelphia, pitting the hometown Phillies against the Houston Astros. Philadelphia fans in general like to boo, and a lot of baseball fans find the Astros to be an inviting target, and boy there were a lot of boos of the Astros players. But the Astros fans were treated with pure civility, as far as I could see. Phillies fans were happy to snap their pictures when asked, there were perfectly polite conversations between the Phillies and Astros fans in my section, I remember an usher having a friendly talk with a couple of Astros fans which culminated in “Good luck tonight – but not too much, if you know what I mean.” It was certainly a contrast from everything I’ve read about European or South American soccer…
In fact, the home team advantage in NBA was recently assessed (when I looked around 2019) at 60-65%. That’s far from parity. It might have changed, but not for the hapless Toronto Raptors.
I once saw the Black Hawks play the Bruins in a Stanley Cup final in Chicago. There was one Bruin in the washroom, fairly drunk, and shooting his mouth off a lot in a room full of big men wearing Chicago jerseys. One, a very large dude, told him succinctly: “You know, you’re lucky that you’re here in Chicago. We’re polite people, even to noisy loudmouths like you. You think we could pull the same (thing) in Boston?” (As a Canadian, I don’t know actually the answer to this question.)
It’s already been done. In the NHL (the OP’s original observation) the home team wins 59% of the team. That’s a shade more than rugby (58%) but a shade less than international cricket (60.1%). All of those fall short when compared to soccer, which worldwide ranges from 60% in Asia and Africa to 69% in the U.S.
But the researchers found that by far, the biggest contributor to home-field advantage is referee bias.
True, but he was also 37 years old and declining in his skills. It might have been more of a “Fuck you” to the Dodgers for deeming him no longer needed than to the Giants. “You’ll get nothing for me, and you won’t have me, either,”
Don’t fall too hard down that slippery slope. You’re really struggling to reach, and I’d hate to see you injure yourself.
If you think that’s tacky, you really need to watch more US team sports.
My personal favorite is when Mark Loretta was playing for the Red Sox in 2006 in an away game, he was on second and took off for third on a hit and run but the batter fouled off the pitch. As he got up from the ground at third and headed back to second the PA played The Beatles Get Back cued to the line Get back Loretta. He laughed. Someone took a lot of time to put that together on the chance that the situation would turn up.
Sounds like OP would like it better in the 80’s when NFL home teams were penalized for the crowd being too loud.
If the athletes don’t care, why should I?
After hearing about the death of the Iron Sheik, I recalled a couple years decades ago when I watched wrestling every Saturday. We used to practice pile drivers and chokeholds and the like during recess. Pretty harmless stuff, admittedly, but I’ll bet this stuff happens way less than it once did, because it is kinda iffy. Whatever athletes do is gonna filter down to lower levels. People need to laugh, for sure, and lighten up. But introductions aren’t hilarious. But it’s not like I think it is a catastrophe, just kind of tacky. Growing up, there was always the dude who spit in his hand before shaking at the end of the game. Meaningless, but nothing to aspire to.