Winning 3 out of 4 is certainly a good incentive. Of course it isn't +7 but the difference between +3.6 to you at home or +3.6 to your opponents if away.

The 44% home wins when equal doesn't surprise me. In close games teams score more points when receiving than when serving. And it's the away team that receives first so all things being equal you'd expect a slight advantage to the away team.

To answer Steve's query:

Since the start of season 9 when we began tracking team match ratings, through the end of season 15, there were 176 matches where a team was rated +7 over the other team.  The higher rated team won 147 of those (83.5% win rate).  68 in 3 sets, 52 in 4 sets, 27 in 5 sets.  The 29 upsets were 9 sweeps, 11 4-set, 9 5-set matches.

At home only (filtering out the +7 away and neutral court matches), there were 84 matches, with 66 home wins (78.6% win rate).  27 sweeps, 25 4-set wins, 14 5-set wins.

A 7-point match ratings difference is certainly substantial.

Another way of thinking of WGM or conference tourney home advantage would be to say: "If we're otherwise even, how much does the average +4 home rating help my win odds?"

Answer: +29.1%

Again using data from seasons 9-15, when evenly rated with the opponent and being at home, the home team won 41 of 88 matches (46.6%).  That's a losing home record.  When +4 at home, the home team won 78 of 103 (75.7%).  That's a better than 1 in 4 jump in match odds, while still leaving ample wiggle room for Olmec to do its thing to the managers of its choosing. You know who you are.

It's probably easier to balance the WGM and Conference this season if you're not in Big 8 😉

Players get +1 on ATK, BLK and DEF when playing at home. The advantage varies between players from 1.75 for a Setter to 4.75 for Right Sides and Middle Blockers. For a team this is around 3.6 points on average. Not as good as the 5.5 you get for all your players having Fit +1 but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. However the difference between playing home to away is really 7.2, and that's getting to be a good advantage. (Kevin might have stats for the chances of winning when +7 on skills).

We play Conference games in sessions 1 to 5. Doing well here gives you a better seeding in the Conference tournament, which runs from sessions 6-8, and home court advantage, but nowadays it's difficult to do well there and also in the WGM group games. For instance, Pekin only won one of their six WGM group games in the two seasons before this and went out the WGM early in both seasons.

A poor early WGM means a low seeding and that 7.2 disadvantage. And the WGM runs to session 8 as well and getting to the final means more games for XP (you throw the non-conference games if needed).

We prioritised the WGM last season, the groups for home court advantage and for the extra games, and it killed our Conference.

Believe me Roy, I'm enjoying it while I can

Anyone not sure who to vote for in the coach award for season one should consider sending Matt's Kentucky Panthers a vote or two after their opening session 

Apparently people hear sex when I say six - there is probably a joke in there 🤔

However, that is not the point of the title of this post. No. First six games and Ames have to face off against 6 of the top 10 T7 squads. It will be a hard first two sessions and just one or two wins will feel like we have won the Championship - what does that feel like 🤔 Probably better than sex - I knew there was a joke in there!

Anyone else notice that 6 of the top 10 T7 ratings to start the season are in the Big 8, including the top 2?  Do you think they'll be generous enough to share any of the trophies with the other three conferences, or will this be a year of Big 8 Title Sweeps?