Whatever happenned to homefield advantage?

Seriously, whatever happenned to it? Everywhere, in virtually every professional sport, homefield advantage just doesn't count anymore.

A huge sign of this would be the current weekend in the NFL playoffs. While I am exercising my boycott, and thus have no knowledge of the current game (Pitt/SD), I do not live in a cave; so I thusly realize that out of the three games so far, three road teams have won.

This is huge. These are playoff games. That means the road team was the team was actually deemed the worse of the two in the course of the regular season, plus, this being the second round, all of the home teams have had an extra week to rest and gameplan for this week.

And yet 3 out of 3 have lost.

Why?

Modern Sports Arenas. They're not made to create a homefield advantage anymore.

They are filled with luxury boxes and private booths. The bottom bowl of seating has shrunken dramatically to bring these boxes closer to the field of play.

Modern sports arenas try to bring the comfort of home to the game, which detracts from ones willingness to make a huge, loud, noise ruckus to disrupt the other team's train of thought etc. When I watch a game at home, sure I get excited and loud sometimes, but only in reaction to things that happen. I want to relax, not taunt the opposing team and officiating crew.

Normal people used to occupy large parts of the bottom bowl of stadiums and arenas. When they became smaller, they became something of a luxury item, a status symbol like the luxury seats. The most die-hard fans are now not the ones who get the good seats, but those who are willing/able to shell out more dollars for those seats. And if you paid good money for those seats, you'll be damned if someone else's cheering and standing up interferes with your sit down observing.

This is not secluded to professional football. While I was at the Flyers/Wild game earlier this week, I was able to see how all those in the bottom bowl, those in the boxes, those in the upper tier, and those in the uppity snobbity boxes watched the game. The bowl watched the game, but was not nearly as enthused as a Spectrum crowd would be. In fact, I hardly recall any people banging on the plexi glass. Why? It's a responsibility of the very bottom row to slam on the glass whenever any players are there, especially opposing ones.

I'm not gonna even get into that much with the two different box groups, but lets just say the very top group had tvs to watch the game (or anything else for that matter) and windows in case they didn't want to deal with the commoners. Fuggin Main-Liners.

But the only group that did seem enthused to be there was the upper tier. The cheap seats. In fact, one man in the top danced on the jumbotron for about five minutes, and then led the entire stadium in cheer. I don't think Ed Snyder would think about doing that at all. When the jumbotron prompted the crowd to be loud, they were the loudest, and didn't even need prompting. When the refs made a bad call (and there were way too many to count) they were to first to do something about it.

So why are they stuck up on the top, where their contribution means even less to the field of play?

When I was a Penn State student in the very not so distant past, I attended almost every football game. I'll admit I wasn't the most awesome and/or loyal of fan (my loyalty can never reach blindness), but I made sure at every game i did my part to make the opposing team uncomfortable, and the opposing fans regret they entered the stadium. And every other student was on that page. The students were all in the bottom bowl, which crowded the SE corner of the endzone. Not to mention the bottom bowl goes up to about 100, and that's after the entire alphabet (maybe even twice, I forget).

My point? That was homefield advantage.

I'm not advocating a stadium that is hostile to other players (and even our own), such as the Vet, Three Rivers, and the Astrodome.
I'm advocating a stadium that inspires the home crowd to piss off everyone who opposes them, not one that inspires them to relax in their seats and watch some athletes do athletic things.

update -- As I was writing this I was told the Steelers won, staving off a perfect 4-4 road trip. I think my point is still valid though.

-- Knuttel