Introduction
The occurrence of home advantage in sport is generally well doc-
umented and has been shown to exist in a variety of sports and
events.1-9 However, the Olympic Games is the only multi-sport com-
petition of global significance in which the phenomenon has been ex-
tensively examined.1,2,9 The Commonwealth Games, often referred
to as the ‘Friendly Games’, is arguably the second most significant
multi-sport international sporting competition, behind the Olympics.
Furthermore, some of the sports historically contested in the Com-
monwealth Games (e.g. lawn bowls) are not part of the Olympic pro-
gramme. Therefore the consideration of the Commonwealth Games
provides a different dimension to home advantage research.
Given that 2010 is a Commonwealth Games year, now is perhaps
an opportune time to investigate how host nations have historically
performed in the event. The ultimate aim of this article is to understand
whether or not hosting the Commonwealth Games might lead to a
competitive advantage in performance. We also investigate the role
of travel in shaping performance in the Commonwealth Games.
The Commonwealth is a voluntary alliance of 53 nations spread
across the globe. Sport is a key part of the Commonwealth’s
identity, and Commonwealth heads of government have recognised
the benefits of physical activity and the importance of sport as an
effective instrument for social and economic development (see:
http://www.thecommonwealth.org/subhomepage/143537/). The
prominence of sport within the Commonwealth brand is expressed
via the Commonwealth Games held every four years. Although
there are 53 Commonwealth nations, there are at present 71
Commonwealth Games Associations (CGAs) that can enter a team
in the Commonwealth Games, as one nation can have multiple
CGAs. For example, the UK is a single Commonwealth nation but
consists of seven CGAs – England, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey,
Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales – all of which compete in the
Commonwealth Games as separate nations.
Table I illustrates the evolution of the Commonwealth Games.
The inaugural edition took place in Hamilton, Canada, in 1930, with
11 countries and 400 athletes contesting 6 sports. Since then there
have been 17 editions of the event, with the most recent being in
Melbourne, Australia, in 2006. Attendance at each edition of the
Commonwealth Games has steadily increased to the point that in
2002 all Commonwealth nations were represented in Manchester,
England. As the number of nations taking part has increased, so too
have the number of athletes, events and disciplines.
The number of teams competing in the Commonwealth Games
is dependent upon the number of nations in the Commonwealth
itself as, from year to year, nations are admitted and suspended
for various reasons. The very early editions of the Commonwealth
Games (1930 - 1938) were characterised by few participant nations
and a limited number of sports. Consequently, and also because the
Commonwealth Games were suspended around the time of World
War II, the research concentrates on the post-war editions of the
event, i.e. from 1950 to 2006.
It may be argued that competition in the Commonwealth Games
has increased over time by virtue of more nations and more athletes
taking part. To illustrate this point, the athlete to event ratio has
increased from 6.70 (590/88) in 1950 to 16.53 (4 049/245) in 2006,
which indicates that the intensity of competition has increased during
this period. Over and above the typical motives cited by nations
orIgInal research arTIcle
home advantage in the commonwealth games
abstract
objectives. Research examining the phenomenon of home ad-
vantage in international multi-sport competitions is limited to the
Olympic Games. This paper investigates the prevalence of home
advantage in the Commonwealth Games. The paper also ex-
plores the relative impact of travel on performance in the Com-
monwealth Games.
Methods. Home and away performances for all previous host na-
tions were examined using the standardised measure of market
share, regarded by recent European studies as the most robust
indicator of a nation’s sporting performance. For each host na-
tion, the host effect was calculated as the difference between
their average home and away performances. Furthermore, the
market share values for each host nation were analysed relative
to the distance travelled by them (in terms of the number of time
zones crossed) in every edition. This exercise was extended to
all nations that have sent a team to the Commonwealth Games
in the post-war era.
results. The research found that, with the exception of England,
all previous host nations experienced a positive host effect in the
Commonwealth Games. Furthermore, for the majority of nations
it was found that performance is negatively correlated with dis-
tance travelled. In other words, as distance travelled increases,
performance deteriorates.
conclusion. The findings suggest that future host nations of the
event can expect to achieve an elevated level of performance
when competing on home soil. This may in part be attributable
to their athletes not having travel outside their own time zone.
Direction for future research is offered.
corresPonDence:
GM Ramchandani
A118 Collegiate Hall, Collegiate Crescent
Sheffield S10 2BP
Tel: +44 (0) 114 225 5461
E-mail: g.ramchandani@shu.ac.uk
girish M ramchandani (Msc)
Darryl J Wilson (Msc)
Sport Industry Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK
8 saJsM vol 22 no. 1 2010
saJsM vol 22 no. 1 2010 9
for staging an event of this magnitude (e.g. economic, regeneration,
international recognition, socio-cultural, sport development, etc.),
hosting the Commonwealth Games could also be a strategic
approach to combat the increase in competition if home advantage
is likely – at least as a short-term solution.
Methods
The method used to conduct this research involved secondary
analysis on the results database of the Commonwealth Games from
1950 to 2006. The event takes place every 4 years and thus the
results are based on 15 editions of the event. The results data for
each edition were sourced from the official Commonwealth Games
website (http://thecgf.com/games/games_index.asp?linkresults=1).
In total eight nations were eligible for inclusion in the home advan-
tage calculations on account of having hosted the event on at least
one occasion since 1950, as identified in Table I. Eligible nations in-
cluded Australia, Canada, New Zealand (each with 3 home editions),
Scotland (2 home editions), England, Jamaica, Malaysia and Wales
(1 home edition each).
The Commonwealth Games medal table ranks participating
nations in descending order of gold medals won, although such
tables are not officially recognised as being an order of merit.
There exist alternative approaches to performance measurement
in international sport and different performance measurement
systems can give conflicting diagnosis of a nation’s performance.
Recent European studies10,11 argue that the most robust indicator
of nations’ sporting performance is ‘market share’– a standardised
measure of total achievement whereby the total medals won in an
event are converted into points (gold = 3, silver = 2 and bronze = 1)
and the points won by a given nation are subsequently expressed as
a percentage of the total points available. For example, if a nation
wins 20 gold medals (60 points), 15 silver medals (30 points) and
10 bronze medals (10 points) then the total number of points won is
100 (60 + 30 + 10). Assuming the total number of points available is
1 000 then its market share would be 10% (i.e. 100/1 000).
Market share calculations were undertaken for all host nations
across each edition of Commonwealth Games between 1950 and
2006. For each host nation, home market share performances were
then compared against their away market share performances to
assess whether home advantage was prevalent.
In order to test whether travel had an impact on performance, the
market share values for each host nation were examined relative to
the distance travelled by them (in terms of the number of time zones
crossed) in every edition. The analysis revealed the nature and
strength of the relationship between host nation performance and
travel in the Commonwealth Games. This exercise was subsequently
extended to all nations that have sent a team to the Commonwealth
Games in the post-war era.
results
The overall home and away performances for all host nations are
summarised in Table II, using the standardised measure of market
share.
All things being equal, it might be expected that a nation’s average
performance at home is comparable with its average performance
away from home. However, for seven of the eight nations in Table II
market share is higher when competing on home soil, as indicated
by a positive host effect for these nations. The magnitude of home
advantage, where prevalent, varies by nation, ranging from 0.3
TaBle I. growth of the commonwealth games
Year host nations sports events athletes
1930 Canada 11 6 59 400
1934 England 16 6 68 500
1938 Australia 15 7 71 464
1950 New Zealand 12 9 88 590
1954 Canada 24 9 91 662
1958 Wales 35 9 94 1 122
1962 Australia 35 9 104 863
1966 Jamaica 34 9 110 1 050
1970 Scotland 42 9 121 1 383
1974 New Zealand 38 9 121 1 276
1978 Canada 46 10 128 1 474
1982 Australia 46 10 142 1 583
1986 Scotland 26 10 163 1 662
1990 New Zealand 55 10 204 2 073
1994 Canada 63 10 217 2 557
1998 Malaysia 70 15 213 3 633
2002 England 72 17 281 3 679
2006 Australia 71 16 245 4 049
TaBle II. host nation performance in the commonwealth games 1950 - 2006
nation
overall home away host effect
editions average (%) editions average (%) editions average (%) % Points
Australia 15 26.9 3 30.2 12 26.0 4.2
England 15 21.4 1 18.7 14 21.8 (3.1)
Canada 15 16.2 3 21.3 12 15.0 6.3
New Zealand 15 6.2 3 10.4 12 5.3 5.1
Scotland 15 3.7 2 5.6 13 3.4 2.2
Wales 15 2.5 1 2.8 14 2.5 0.3
Malaysia 13 2.0 1 5.3 12 1.6 3.7
Jamaica 13 1.7 1 2.4 12 1.6 0.8
Host effect = Home average (%) minus Away average (%).
percentage points for Wales
to 6.3 percentage points for
Canada.
In the analysis, England
was the only nation for which
an adverse host effect was
observed. The lack of home
advantage in the case of
England masks the nation’s
superior performances in the
editions held by its fellow UK
home nations and immediate
neighbours – Scotland and
Wales. To illustrate this point,
the average market share for
England in the Commonwealth
Games held in the UK (at
home, in Scotland and Wales)
is 26.7% and 20.7% when held
elsewhere.
Table III highlights the
‘best’ and ‘worst’ performances
for each host nation and
pinpoints the location of such
performances in terms of home,
away and neighbour editions.
The concept of neighbour edition is introduced to account for the
geographical proximity in the case of UK home nations of England,
Scotland and Wales and possibly for other host nations. For this
purpose, a neighbour was considered to be any nation sharing the
same time zone with the host nation.
According to Table III, the most productive market share
performance for five of the eight host nations in the Commonwealth
Games coincided with their home edition. Furthermore, two of the
three instances where nations did not reach their highest level of
performance at home occurred on neighbouring soil – performances
for both England and Wales peaked in Scotland. Furthermore, the
lowest market share returns for all host nations are confined to the
‘Away’ column in Table III. Therefore, without exception, the least
favourable performance was witnessed when not competing at home
or in the same time zone. Together these findings draw attention to
the implications of competing at home and, to a lesser extent, nearer
to home.
Using the number of time zones crossed as an indicator of
distance travelled to the host nation, it was possible to plot each
nation’s performance against the corresponding travel factor (time
zone difference from the host nation) across every edition. The
exercise revealed that performance was negatively correlated with
travel for all host nations. In other words, as distance travelled
increases, performance deteriorates. The coefficient of correlation
(r) values are presented in Fig. 1.
In order to test whether this finding was limited to host nations or
part of a more common phenomenon, we repeated the exercise for
all 78 nations that have contested the Commonwealth Games since
1950. Some territories have subsequently merged whilst others are
no longer part of the Commonwealth alliance. For the purpose of
this research, 23 nations were exempt from the analysis on the basis
that they only contested one edition of the event and therefore there
is no alternative point of reference available for these nations against
which to relate their performance with travel to the host location
(e.g. Belize, Brunei, Gibraltar and Sierra Leone). In this regard, the
findings relate to 55 ‘eligible’ nations.
Overall, the analysis revealed an inverse association (r<0)
between distance travelled and performance for 38 (69%) out of the
55 nations. In other words, for the majority of nations, success in
the event diminishes with travel. The magnitude of the correlation
varies by nation and by broad geographic region. For example, the
TaBle III. host nation performance matrix
nation
Best performance (market share) Worst performance (market share)
home % neighbour % away % home % neighbour % away %
Australia 34.3 18.6
Canada 29.5 6.8
England 29.4 15.0
Jamaica 3.1 0.5
Malaysia 5.3 0.2
New Zealand 18.4 3.3
Scotland 6.1 1.5
Wales 4.0 0.4
Fig. 1. Travel versus performance in the Commonwealth Games (r values)
Fig. 1. Travel versus performance in the Commonwealth Games (r values).
10 saJsM vol 22 no. 1 2010
saJsM vol 22 no. 1 2010 11
finding r<0 was more widespread among Commonwealth nations
from Africa (14/18 nations, 78%) and Europe (7/9 nations, 78%)
relative to those from Americas/Caribbean (8/12 nations, 67%) and
Asia/Oceania (9/16 nations, 56%). The performance for India, the
host of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, was also found to be
negatively correlated with distance travelled (r=-0.40). Thus, in
theory not having to travel abroad or outside its own time zone to
compete could make a positive contribution to India’s performance
in 2010. Nations that did not exhibit an inverse relationship between
travel and performance (i.e. where r>0) were found to be generally
those with relatively modest success in the Commonwealth Games
(e.g. Cayman Islands, Jersey, Norfolk Island and St. Vincent and The
Grenadines).
Discussion
The first key finding from the research was that, with the exception
of England, all previous host nations experienced a positive host
effect in the Commonwealth Games. It is difficult to comment on
the statistical significance of these findings because of the size of
the data set involved. The analysis is limited to at most 15 editions
(or observations) for a host nation. Also, nations inevitably compete
away from home more often than they do at home. This in turn
creates a disparity between the number of home and away observa-
tions for each nation in the sample. For example, Australia has only
three observations for home performance but twelve observations
for away performance. Despite the limitations of the data, in descrip-
tive terms, there is evidence of nations generally performing better
when they have hosted the Commonwealth Games.
If we regard average away performance as a measure of
nation quality then there appears to be no systematic relationship
between the relative quality of a host nation and the extent of the
home advantage. For example, both Canada and New Zealand
benefit more at home than Australia. Similarly, the home advantage
experienced by Malaysia and Jamaica is greater than that of Wales,
but lower than Canada, New Zealand and Australia. In other words,
traditionally stronger nations in the Commonwealth Games do not
necessarily benefit from greater home advantage.
As to why such home advantage may exist, there are generally
three factors that are perceived to be at work: the influence of the home
crowd, home athletes’ familiarity with local conditions, and the effects
of travel.8,12-20 The last of these factors is particularly pertinent in the
context of the Commonwealth Games where international travel is
involved that can sometimes span several time zones. The research
has shown that, as a general rule of thumb, a nation’s performance
in the Commonwealth Games progressively deteriorates the further
its athletes travel away from their own time zone. A possible
explanation for this finding is ‘jet lag’. Previous research18 indicates
that the severity of jet lag and subsequent recovery is a function
of the number of time zones crossed. From a policy standpoint,
the findings from the research should enable non-host nations to
set pragmatic aspirations for success in the Commonwealth Games,
allowing for any ‘performance loss’ associated with travel to the host
location, particularly when the event is held in a different time zone.
Yet another candidate for home advantage in the Commonwealth
Games is strategic in nature. This relates to the level of influence
that a host nation can exert over the portfolio of sports, and the
number of events contested within those sports, at its home edition.
At present, the Commonwealth Games programme consists of a
minimum of 10 sports, all which are mandatory. Article 21 of the
Commonwealth Games Federation Constitution (http://thecgf.com/
about/constitution.pdf) states that a candidate city has the option
to select up to seven further disciplines from a predetermined list
of sports. Thus, host nations may opt to put forward sports and
events that provide them with the best opportunity to win medals.
Concurrently, organising committees may consciously minimise or
omit disciplines in which competitor nations have a proven track
record of success. This presents an area for future research to
investigate how well host nations perform in optional sports rather
than those that are mandatory.
Much of the media coverage surrounding the 2010 Commonwealth
Games in Delhi has focussed on the city’s preparation for, and
capability of, staging the event. This issue has been further flagged
following the recent abandonment of the fifth One Day International
cricket match between India and Sri Lanka in Delhi due to an unfit
pitch. Regardless of how well Delhi is progressing towards ensuring
the successful delivery of the Commonwealth Games, on the field it
is reasonable to expect an elevated level of performance from Indian
athletes given the evidence presented in this paper.
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