Super Bowl LVI: How Rams' Home-Field Advantage Impacts 2022 Super Bowl Odds

Feb 03, 2022

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For the first 54 years of the event’s existence, no team played a Super Bowl in its home stadium. However, for the second year in a row, a team will get to play the big game at home. Last year, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won three road playoff games to earn the honor of being the first team to play a home Super Bowl and blew out the Kansas City Chiefs, winning by a score of 31-9. This year, after beating the defending champions on the road, the Los Angeles Rams won the NFC Championship at home to earn the honor of being the second team to play a Super Bowl in their own stadium. How much of an advantage will there be when the Rams face the Bengals?

Home-Field Advantages (and Disadvantages)

There are certainly advantages to playing at home. Mostly, the Rams will get to go through their normal preparation in the two-week run-up to the game. Tom Brady said it well in the run-up to last year’s game:

“I’m happy I’m in my own bed. I’m happy I’m eating good stuff at home. I’m happy I had extra time to prepare. I don’t have to travel, don’t have to pack my clothes, pack up all my other crap. It’s our own locker room, our own practice field. In the end, there’s some real positives to take from it.”

It was business as usual for Tampa Bay last year. The Rams get that benefit this year. Some people would argue that by playing at home the Rams could have more distractions than they would if they were playing the game in an unfamiliar city, but the positives likely far outweigh the negatives.

On the flip side, Sofi Stadium doesn’t provide a huge home-field advantage for the Rams under normal circumstances, and these circumstances will be anything but normal. The Rams have been re-building its fan base in Los Angeles after a 22-year sojourn to St. Louis. With the allure of everything Southern California has to offer, there are typically a lot of visiting fans at Rams home games. That was the case in both Week 18 and in the NFC Championship when the San Francisco 49ers made the short trip down the coast and turned Sofi Stadium into Levi’s Stadium South. The 49ers took over the stadium so thoroughly the Rams' offense was forced to use a silent count at times to deal with the noise coming from opposing fans.

The Super Bowl also typically has an unusual crowd because so many seats are given to corporate partners and other entities. so the 70,240 seat stadium isn’t going to be entirely filled with fans on either side. Bengals fans waited 33 years to see their team return to the Super Bowl and despite the exorbitant cost, many of them will be happy to escape the Ohio winter to see their team play for a championship. You’d have to expect Bengals fans to be as noisy, if not noisier, than Rams fans in attendance.

Home vs. Away Splits

As far as splits go, the Rams were pretty even at home and on the road this year. The Rams were 7-3 straight up at home and 8-2 on the road. The Rams are 10-10 against the spread this season and went 5-5 ATS at home and 5-5 on the road. Straight up, the Bengals were 6-4 at home and 7-3 on the road. Cincinnati’s splits against the spread are a bit more stark. The Bengals went 5-5 at home against the spread and went 8-2 against the spread on the road. The Bengals' road losses were in Joe Burrow’s second game back from his ACL injury (an inexplicable loss to the Jets) and in Week 18 to Cleveland when they rested their starters. Added to the quirks of the Super Bowl is the fact the Rams are playing in their home stadium but they’re the designated road team and will have to use the visitor facilities. Despite that distinction, when it comes to making the odds for the game, bookmakers will consider them the home team and the home-road distinction has no bearing on the actual game.

Home-Field Odds Boost?

For decades, oddsmakers in Las Vegas have said that home-field advantage is worth about three points to the spread. In recent years that baseline has come into question by some people but generally speaking, oddsmakers adhere to that.The Rams being able to go through their normal preparation is a nice boost, but if you want to give them a boost for home-field advantage, there’s a fair argument to suggest that it’s only going to be a slight one. It’s impossible to say how much playing at home helped the Buccaneers last year, but it’s likely they didn’t beat the Chiefs because they were at home, it’s probable they beat the Chiefs because they had a great game plan and took advantage of some of the Chiefs’ weaknesses. If the Rams win this game it’s more likely that they’re just better than the Bengals and it has less to do with playing at home.