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I've spent plenty of time over the years debunking the Philadelphia fan stereotype. Sure, Philly fans can be a rowdy bunch and not always on their best behavior. But that kind of fan behavior is hardly exclusive to a certain east coast city. There are many unfortunate fan incidents that take place around not only the country but the world altogether on a regular basis.
According to an interesting post over at Phillies SB Nation blog The Good Phight, however, one FanPost claims that Philadelphia is indeed the worst sports city in North America. More specifically, all four major Philly sports teams have the worst home field advantage any team can get. Here's their method and proof:
To find out how well a team uses their home field advantage, you compare a team’s overall winning percentage over the last 10 years to their home winning percentage in that same time span. For instance, the Philadelphia Phillies have a .543 Win Percentage- good enough for 5th in MLB – in the last 10 years. Their home record during that same time is a .558 Win Percentage, which is only good for 13th. That slim .015 amount of improvement they see at home is slimmer than every other team in baseball over that same time period, with the average MLB team being .041 better at home.
Team | Total W% | Home W% | HomeAdv% | LgAvg | Lg Rank |
Eagles | 55.63% | 55.00% | -0.62% | 6.95% | Last |
Phillies | 54.32% | 55.76% | 1.45% | 4.09% | Last |
Flyers | 50.14% | 52.27% | 2.13% | 5.07% | Last |
Sixers | 43.91% | 51.00% | 7.09% | 9.87% | Last |
Regarding Philly's football team, TGP poster lorecore notes that "the Eagles are the worst home team in North America themselves, as they are the only team who actually owns a better overall road record than home, in any sport." I don't know if this is hilariously coincidental or depressingly meaningful, but it's definitely interesting. And it's something BGN has written about before. Last year Mike Kaye took a look at the Eagles home/road splits over the last 10 years. I updated the chart with the 2013 data. As you can see, the Eagles' road record is a full 2% better than their home record. Not to mention that the team's home record hasn't been better than the road record since 2009.
Year | Home Record | Road Record |
---|---|---|
2003 | (5-3) | (7-1) |
2004 | (7-1) | (6-2) |
2005 | (4-4) | (2-6) |
2006 | (5-3) | (5-3) |
2007 | (3-5) | (5-3) |
2008 | (6-2) | (3-4-1) |
2009 | (6-2) | (5-3) |
2010 | (4-4) | (6-2) |
2011 | (3-5) | (5-3) |
2012 | (2-6) | (2-6) |
2013 | (4-4) | (6-2) |
Total | (49-39) 55.7% | (52-35-1) 59.7% |
Welpadelphia.