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In the whole scheme of things, it's still a small sample size, but some of you may be interested in the results to date for league matches being played in an empty stadium. It's a little more garish than my usual more subtle style, but shows the outcomes for backing the Home result using Pinnacle's Closing Odds adjusted to a standard 103% over-round.  As might be expected, the results so far show that the loss of a crowd has more of an effect on the teams in the top tier of leagues than on teams from the second tier.  The Bundesliga is complete and the top league showed a big loss, although again, 82 matches is very small, while Bundesliga.2 showed a profit. Home teams in La Liga are also under-performing with just two rounds to go, with second tier teams just about where they are expected and in Italy, it's a similar pattern. In England and Portugal, the top teams currently show better than expected returns, but the Championship (where crowds are higher than other seco...

An article in Wednesday's New York Times was titled Do Empty Stadiums Affect Outcomes? The Data Says Yes . Perhaps a little premature, and as the article is behind a paywall, I probably shouldn't reproduce it here in full, but a few highlights are probably acceptable. To set the stage, Home Advantage has existed since leagues were first formed. A  2013 study  said: The sample of 52 countries monitored during a period of 10 years allows us to study 520 leagues and 111,030 matches of the highest level in each country associated with UEFA. Home advantage exists and is significant in 32 of the 52 UEFA countries, where it equals 55.6%. The byline of the New York Times' article was " Home teams were less likely to win without fans in the stands, an analysis of Bundesliga matches showed ." I mentioned in this post that Away sides had scored more goals than Home in empty stadiums, a fact corroborated by the NYT's article, but the latter also added that Home sides too...