Bias in College Basketball Referees

Here's a bit talking about a new paper talking about bias in college basketball referees. In particular:

- The probability of a foul being called on the visiting team was 7 percent higher than on the home team.

- When the home team is leading, the probability of the next foul being called on them was about 6.3 percentage points higher than when the home team was trailing. The professors also cited an earlier study that concluded there were more calls against teams ahead in games on national TV versus those ahead in locally televised games. Calling fouls against the leading team tends to keep games closer, the studies said.

- The bigger the difference in fouls between the two teams playing, the more likely it was that the next call would come against the team with fewer fouls. When the home team had five or more fouls than the visiting team, there was a 69 percent chance the visiting team would be whistled for the next foul.

I haven't seen a copy of the article itself, and while bottom two statements take some effort to be put forth accurately, the top one speaks plainly to an issue worth looking at. 365 games is admittedly small but it's a great start for a wide-scale investigation. I'd be curious to see at what point that home advantage dissipated-- smaller D-I basketball? D-II or D-III? High school? Middle school?