INTRODUCTION: The novel strain of coronavirus disease, COVID-19, was first identified in 2019, and due to its highly contagious nature, many elite sporting competitions were suspended and/or postponed. Sporting events that could continue, whether immediately or delayed, implemented strict bio-safety precautions to minimise the risk of spreading infection. Consequently, in many cases, crowds were prohibited from attending games. Research suggests that the presence or absence of a crowd may exert a social facilitation effect on players and officials in elite sport, which in turn might affect performance. Along with social facilitation theory, a related phenomenon known as the home advantage, suggests that the home team typically wins more games and scores more points than the away team. Research suggests that supportive crowds are social representatives of their players and encourage the home team to play well. However, minimal research has investigated the interaction between crowd (present or absent) and match location (home or away) on sport performance. METHODS: This study used a retrospective observational design to investigate the influence of the crowd and match location in the National Rugby League (NRL) by comparing player statistics (attacking or defending) and Global Positioning System (GPS) metrics between season 2020 Round 1 (crowds) and Round 2 (no crowd). Data were obtained for 203 professional NRL players. A linear mixed model with a random intercept (Player ID) was used to assess the relationship between crowd removal and match location on performance indicators and GPS metrics. Effect sizes (ES) were also calculated to determine the magnitude of change. RESULTS: The effect of a crowd and match location were trivial to small (ES range: -0.213 to 0.224). Attacking statistics suggest that NRL players engaged in more decoys (p=0.022, ES=0.162), increased post-contact metres (p=0.020, ES=0.206), and decreased support runs (p=0.005, ES=-0.184) in the absence of a crowd. When defending, the number of missed tackles increased (p=0.018, ES=0.213) in the absence of a crowd. GPS running metrics suggest that players had higher maximal velocities (p=0.027, ES=0.155), however, lower relative acceleration loads (p=<0.001, ES=-0.224), in the absence of a crowd. When playing away from home, athletes spent more time in the high-speed running thresholds (p=0.020, ES=0.072). CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that the absence of a crowd had minimal effect on players` performance indicators. Further, findings also showed that the HA was largely unaffected by the removal of the crowd in the sample of professional rugby league games examined in the present study. Any changes were more likely to result from the score margin and other contextual factors. Potentially, the removal of the crowd may have reduced the advantage toward the home-team. However, it appears that elite rugby league athletes can maintain optimal physical performance without a crowd.
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