Poll-- biggest reason for the "home field advantage?"

Sports statistics indicate what is very well-known-- that there is an advantage to the home team in a sporting contest. For the major pro sports, checking sites it seems to be about 58%-62% in the NFL, 56% in Major League Baseball, 63% in the NBA and 55% in the NHL. While superior talent does obviously trump the "home field advantage," it's still true that there is such an advantage. Of all the reasons this is true, what is the most significant of the factors?

 

One thing a talk show brought to my attention today was that time zone differences can be a factor-- especially for football, as a team typically arrives the day before the game and leaves right after the game. This Sunday, Oakland at Buffalo and Seattle at Pittsburgh are games where the visitor is from Pacific Time playing early in Eastern Time, which is 10 a.m. to them in their normal schedule. But San Diego at New England is the later game [4 p.m. EDT, 1 p.m. PDT], and that is SD's regular time for their own home games. Perhaps those 3 might be considered a small key to the time difference factor as we observe how they play. But, like the first week, or any one week, of the season, it won't be very telling of the whole story. And it's hard to review that theory from last year because while it's easy to find last year's results, it's hard to find the game times, which don't matter once the games have been played.

ed. Arizona at Washington is another 10 a.m. for the visiting team game.