I work for an ad agency, and my boss has, what I think, is a mediocre idea for an iconic US brand we’re working on, based around sporting analogies. (It’s hard to explain, and I won’t mention the brand).
Anyway, it relies on the sporting concept of the ‘Home Team’ - the idea that by playing at your home stadium you have ‘Home Advantage’ or ‘Home Gain’.
These are phrases used frequently in British sports such as rugby, cricket and soccer to suggest that playing home, you have a better chance, but is this a thing in the US?
Don’t want to take this idea forward if our US Clients are going to look at us like we’re going mad.
I’m certainly familiar with the phrase and concept. In my experience though, it’s not something that’s taken very seriously. Mostly it’s mentioned as an excuse to justify a visiting team’s loss. “We were playing them on their own field. Back home we would have beaten them easily.” sort of thing.
Home advantage is well established and is taken very seriously in most sports. The extent of home advantage varies from 53% in major league baseball to 58% in major league basketball. Teams will go to a great deal of effort to try to secure home field advantage in playoff series, and it is factored in by Las Vegas oddsmakers.
Sports commentators frequently talk about teams’ “home and away” records, so yes, it’s a common concept. Although in the US, it’s usually phrased “home field advantage”.
NHL has different rules for player changes. If there is a stoppage, the home team gets to change players after they see who the visiting team sends out. Of course both teams can change players during the action at any time.
In the NFL it’s definitely a thing. The crowd noise can certainly affect the visiting QB’s instructions and snap count. Seattle holds the stadium noise record at about 138dB.
According to the team’s website, the Seahawks lead the NFL in opponent false start penalties since 2005, and last year no team had a larger difference in opponent false start penalties generated at home (12) versus on the road (5).
I’ve heard “home team advantage” enough to disagree that it sounds odd. It’s used as a more generic term, without having to change the noun when the sport isn’t played on a field, e.g. “home court advantage” for basketball.
A data point of one, here, but “home advantage” sounds a bit formal (for an ad) to my American ears, as though the concept itself were being discussed. I usually hear it expressed as “home+playing surface (field, court, ice)+advantage”.
I suppose, though, it depends on the audience. San Vito, is the ad you’re working on going to run in the U.S. or the U.K.? If it were for a British audience, I’d think you’d want the Briticism.
I think, but I’m not sure, that I’ve never heard “home advantage” in the US. It’s always home field advantage, home court advantage, or home ice advantage when I’ve heard it.
Baseball has the odd situation in the world series , if the AL team is playing at home both teams use the DH but if the NL team is home they don’t. Also true for interleague regular season games.
Of course having 2 sets of rules in 1 pro sport is dumb. Especially now when interleague play is all through the regular season.
Most commonly “Home Field Advantage”. If the ad isn’t about a specific sport, and just Home Advantage in general, then call it Home Field Advantage. I’m with the group of Dopers here who say that “Home Advantage” just doesn’t sound right. It would be understood, but it would feel “off”.
Home Court Advantage or Home Ice Advantage or whatever else would be great for those specific sports. But if it’s a generic concept, use Home Field Advantage.
Growing up, I played organized football for 11 years, and baseball for 8. I never once heard someone say “Home Advantage” as opposed to “Home Field Advantage”. And that’s saying something, considering the former is shorter. You’d think we would have used the shorter phrasing. In fact, this thread might be the first time I’ve ever heard it referred to simply as “Home Advantage” without “field, court, ice, etc.” in there.