Abstract
Because of problems with a previously published study, a re-analysis of data relating to home advantage in handball in Spain was made. The overall home advantage for 10,536 games played over 11 seasons (1997–98 to 2007–08) at the top two levels of play for both men and women was 60.4%. It was significantly higher for men (61.6%) than for women (59.2%). Contrary to a conclusion in the previous paper, it was also significantly higher for play at Level 2 (61.3%) than at Level 1 (59.4%), representing the top two divisions of play for each sex. A three-way factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated that there was no difference between seasons, nor an interaction between seasons and gender as claimed previously. For individual teams, there was a clear negative correlation between home advantage and ability, as quantified by the overall performance of each team each season. This reversed the previous conclusion of a positive correlation. Because the previous study incorrectly claimed no prior research had been done on home advantage either in handball or between sexes, a review of the literature relating to these topics is included.
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