What is Home Field Advantage?

Home field advantage (HFA) is the statistical edge for teams when playing at their home venue. In the NFL, this advantage is represented as a point spread. Here is a simplified example to demonstrate how home field advantage impacts a matchup.

Assumptions:

• Team A: power ranked 5 points better than average
• Team B: power ranked 3 points better than average
• Home Field Advantage: 2 points

Examples:

• Team A vs Team B at a neutral site: Team A (5) - Team B (3) = 2 point spread
• Team A vs Team B at Team A's home field: Team A (5) - Team B (3) + HFA (2) = 4 point spread
• Team A vs Team B at Team B's home field: Team A (5) - Team B (3) - HFA (2) = 0 point spread

Because home field advantage materially impacts expected margin of victory and win probability, it has become a fundamental concept in sports betting, as it directly impacts point spreads, moneylines, and totals across all NFL games.

Where does home field advantage come from?

While home field advantage is easily observed in historical NFL data, the exact source of the advantage is not well understood as there is a confluence of factors that can contribute to the advantage.

• Crowd Noise: The crowd noise can disrupt opposing team communications, and the home team may have an advantage in hearing their own calls and signals.
• Familiarity: The home team may have a familiarity with the field conditions and facilities, which can give them an advantage.
• Timezone Adjustment: The home team is more acclimated to their local timezone, which can give a performance edge depending on when the game is played.
• Reduced Travel Fatigue: The home team may have a reduced travel fatigue, which can give them an advantage.
• Extra Preperation: With less time spent traveling, the home team effectively receives an additional day to prepare for the game.
• Favorable Officiating: The home team may have a favorable officiating, which can give them an advantage.
• Psychological Comfort: The home team may have a psychological comfort of playing in a familiar environment, which can give them an advantage.
• Weather Conditions: The home team may have a favorable weather conditions, which can give them an advantage.

These concepts are explored in greater detail in two of our deep dives:

• An Initial Exploration of Home Field Advantage in the NFL
• A Further Exploration of Home Field Advantage in the NFL

Here are some of the key insights from those deep dives, some of which you can see for yourself using the tools above.

The Myth of the 2.5-Point Home Field Advantage

For decades, the conventional wisdom in sports betting and analytics circles held that home field advantage was worth approximately 2.5 to 3 points in the NFL. This rule of thumb became so entrenched that it was commonly used as a baseline for handicapping games and setting point spreads.

The 2.5-point assumption meant:

• A neutral-site game between two equal teams would have no spread
• The same matchup with one team at home would open around -2.5 or -3
• This advantage was considered relatively stable across teams and seasons

This simplistic view treated home field advantage as a constant, universal factor that could be reliably applied to every team in every situation. Bettors and analysts would often adjust their handicapping by simply adding or subtracting this standard amount when evaluating games.

Why the Flat 2.5-Point Model Falls Short

As nfelo analysis shows, the traditional flat 2.5-point model fails to account for a variety of factors that contextually impact home field advantage on a game to game basis.

For instance, divisional games see a much smaller home field advantage, likely because of the familiarity between the teams and the added experience the away team has by playing in the opposing team's stadium every season.

Field surface can also play a meaningful role in home field advantage. When an away team plays on a field that has a different surface than their own (ie Turf vs Grass), the home team's edge is larger, as field surface impacts playing speed and must be acclimated to.

There is also an interplay between Home field advantage and bye weeks. A bye week is worth more to an away team because it directly counteracts the the travel disadvantages of both less rest and preparation time.

Finally, the 2.5-point assumption also ignores the observable fact that home field advantage is not constant, but rather a dynamic variable that has changed over time.

Starting in roughly 2016, home field advantage began trending downward. In recent seasons, league-wide home field advantage has been closer to 1.5 points than to 2.5 points.

You can verify this for yourself by looking at the chart above, which shows rolling 5 season observed home field advantage for the NFL.

The Challenge of Predicting Individual Team HFA

Home field advantage isn't just misunderstood at the league level. It's also misunderstood at the team level.

It's generally thought that certain teams enjoy an intrinsicly enhanced home field advantage that doesn't chang over time. The Saints have the Superdome, the Seahawks have the 12th Man, and the Ravens have M&T Bank, the Broncos have the altitude of Mile High, the Dolphins have the heat of Miami, etc.

While we do see periods where these teams experienced outsized home field advantage, the variance in their data would suggest it is more ephemeral or perhaps even random.

Using the tools above, you can see that each of these teams have had prolonged periods of both meaningfully high and meaningfully low home field advantage with many seasons spent below the average for the rest of the league.

Why Past Performance Doesn't Predict Future HFA

The most crucial insight for bettors and analysts is that historical home field advantage data has limited predictive value for future performance:

1. Regression to the Mean: Extreme home field advantages tend to normalize over time
2. Personnel Changes: Coaching changes, roster turnover, and scheme modifications can dramatically alter home field dynamics. If a team instituded a program, roster, or scheme that benefited playing at home, that effect will dissipate as the staff and players turnover.
3. League Adjustments: When a stadium is difficult to play in, opposing teams take note and adjust their game plans accordingly. If a stadium as a particularly loud endzone, or an unusual placement of a game clock, or difficult logistics that impact the away team, the league will identify and account for these factors over time.

How to Use the nfelo HFA Tracker

The NFL Home Field Advantage tracker provides comprehensive tools to analyze both historical trends and current patterns across the league and for individual teams.

League-Wide Analysis

Trending Data: View how home field advantage has evolved across different eras of NFL football, with rolling averages that smooth out short-term variance while highlighting longer-term trends.

Historical Context: Compare current HFA levels to historical baselines from the 1999 to present to get a snapshot of where home field advantage is today.

Individual Team Exploration

Team-Specific HFA: Select any team to see their historical home field advantage across different time periods. This feature is particularly revealing when examining teams like:

• Seattle Seahawks: Observe the dramatic rise during the 2010s with the Legion of Boom, and the gradual normalization in recent years
• Baltimore Ravens: Track how defensive excellence and stadium atmosphere combined to create periods of exceptional home field advantage
• New Orleans Saints: See how a period of above average home field advantage created a narrative that the Superdome is a particularly difficult place to play.
• Denver Broncos: See that Mile High doesn't demonstrate any consistent or durable home field advantage for the Broncos despite the effect altitude has on opponents.

Rolling Windows: Examine home field advantage across different sample sizes to understand how team HFA varies depending on the time frame analyzed.

Stadium-Specific Insights

Active vs. Historic Venues: Compare how teams have performed in different stadiums

Team to Team Comparisons: Sort the data by different rolling windows to see who has experienced the most home field advantage relative to the rest of the league.

Related NFL Analysis Tools

• NFL Team Power Ratings - See how home field advantage affects overall team strength
• NFL Cover Probability Calculator - Factor HFA into spread analysis
• NFL Odds Calculator - Convert odds accounting for home field edge
• NFL Model Performance - Track how models account for home field advantage