Description:
The home advantage phenomenon is a well-established feature in sports competitions. In this paper, we examine data from 1,908 soccer matches played in the German Bundesliga during the seasons from 2007-08 to 2015-16. Using a very rich data set, our econometric analysis that is based on matching methods reveals that the usual home advantage disappears when the game is in the middle of the week instead of being on the weekend. Our results indicate that, since the midweek matches are unevenly allocated among teams, the actual schedules of the Bundesliga favour teams with fewer home games in midweek. The paper also shows that these soccer-specific findings have some implications for the design of contests in general.