In the XFL home-field advantage is real. This is not a mirage or something that is not obvious. While there have been some interesting calls and non-calls, it really does not seem to be the obvious officiating bias that one would suspect in such a home dominated league.
Is it the travel schedule? Lack of practice time in a different environment? I am not sure, but you cannot dispute the numbers or the total change that seems to impact some teams when they leave home.
Week 1 had three of four home teams win (DC, Houston, and Guardians) The lowest margin of victory was 18 points.
Week 2 had three of four home teams win (DC, Seattle, Houston) and DC won by 27 and got a shutout.
Week 3 Was the only week with multiple road wins and as Houston and Dallas, both won on the road. However, Seattle and LA won their home games by 20 and 30 points respectively. DC who was dominant at home lost by 30 in their first road game.
Week 4 had 3 of 4 home teams win. The Guardians came back to beat the LA Wildcats who had won at home by 30 points the prior week. DC became the second road team to get shut out.
Diving deeper into the scores over the 4 weeks shows only 1 home team has scored less than 10 points in a full game and that was Dallas in Week 1 with 9. Road teams have scored less than 10 points 6 times in 4 weeks, including 2 shut outs. This clearly shows that not just are road teams failing to win, they are also finding it much harder to even score when away from home.
Only Houston and Dallas have won multiple road games. LA, Seattle, DC, Tampa Bay, and New York have yet to win any away from home. Dallas is the only team to have won both road games and lost both home games.
Every team in the league outside of Dallas has won at least 1 time in their first 2 home games. There are no winless teams in the XFL after 4 weeks due to everyone winning at home. St Louis, DC, NY, and Houston have all won their first 2 home games. DC and NY were blown out in both road games badly.
With road teams winning only 31% of the time are also suffering on the scoreboard as well in most cases. From a win and scoring point of view, stats do not lie. Home field advantage is king in the XFL as there is only one outlier from this rule.
Every time you can find a win away from home, you significantly increase your chances of making the playoffs. It may not even take more than 2 for most teams to accomplish this.
