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In sports, home is a term referring to both the city and stadium, arena, or field where an athletic team plays games at their venue, whilst when the team plays elsewhere then they are considered the away team. The home term can refer to either the sponsoring institution or the place where it is franchised.^[1] Most professional teams represent cities and amateur sports teams often represent cities or academic institutions. Each team has a location where it practices during the season and where it hosts games. This is referred to as the home court, home field, home stadium, home arena, or home ice.^[2] When a team is serving as host of a contest, it is designated as the "home team". The event is described as a "home game" for that team and the venue that the game is being played is described as the "home field."^[3] In most sports, there is a home field advantage whereby the home team wins more frequently because it has a greater familiarity with the nuances of the venue and because it has more fans cheering for it, which supposedly give the players adrenaline and an advantage.^{[citation needed]} The opposing team is said to be the visiting team, the away team, or the road team.

In baseball, sometimes, when teams are playing a makeup game from an earlier game postponed by rain, the game may have to be made up in the other team's stadium. An example of this occurred on September 26, 2007, with a game between the Cleveland Indians, who were the "home" team, but the game was played vs. the Seattle Mariners in Safeco Field, with their fans, etc.^[4] Other instances of the home team playing in the visitor's stadium include the New Orleans Saints hosting the New York Giants at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005; and the Toronto Blue Jays playing a 2010 home series with the Philadelphia Phillies in the Phillies' Citizens Bank Park while the G-20 Summit was being held near the Rogers Centre in Toronto. Because it was an interleague series, the designated hitter rule was instituted in a National League ballpark for the first time in the regular season.

A spectator can often tell which team is home by looking at the field of play. Often a home team logo, insignia or name is in the middle of the field at center ice, midfield, or center court. Also, the logo, insignia or name may be found atop a dugout in baseball or in the end zone in American football.

Additionally, in baseball and basketball, the home team will typically choose to wear the lighter colored version of its uniform. In fact, many teams have a home uniform which is mostly white and referred to as the "home whites".^{[citation needed]} The road team will generally wear a version of its uniform with one of the darker of its official colors as the main color, or in baseball with a grey main color referred to as the "road greys". In American football and hockey, the home team tends to wear uniforms that feature their team colors, whereas the visiting team will wear white or a lighter color.^{[citation needed]}

The term "home whites" originated in the early days of Major League Baseball. Typically the visiting team had no access to laundry facilities and thus the players were unable to clean their uniforms on the road. By wearing grey or another dark color the visiting team was better able to conceal the dirt and grass stains that had accumulated on their uniforms over the course of the series. The home team, having access to laundry facilities, was able to wear clean white uniforms each day, hence the term "home whites".^{[citation needed]}

When viewing a scoreline, the home team is most commonly listed first, except in the United States, where the away team is listed first. This probably derives from the American history of sports, where in baseball the away team bats first.^[5] When watching sports on TV, the order of the scoreline is determined by the network, and the score is positioned either to the right or below the name of the teams.

Typically, the home team not only hosts its opponent, but also the media and the officials (referees, umpires, etc.).

See also[link]

• Road (sports)

Notes[link]

A team at work

A team comprises a group of people or animals linked in a common purpose. Teams are especially appropriate for conducting tasks that are high in complexity and have many interdependent subtasks.

A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team. Teams normally have members with complementary skills and generate synergy through a coordinated effort which allows each member to maximize his/her strengths and minimize his/her weaknesses. Team members need to learn how to help one another, help other team members realize their true potential, and create an environment that allows everyone to go beyond their limitations.^[1]

Thus teams of game players can form (and re-form) to practise their craft. Transport logistics executives can select teams of horses, dogs or oxen for the purpose of conveying goods.

Theorists in business in the late 20th century popularised the concept of constructing teams. Differing opinions exist on the efficacy of this new management fad. Some see "team" as a four-letter word: overused and under-useful. Others see it as a panacea that finally realizes the human relations movement's desire to integrate what that movement perceives as best for workers and as best for managers. Still others believe in the effectiveness of teams, but also see them as dangerous because of the potential for exploiting workers — in that team effectiveness can rely on peer pressure and peer surveillance.

Compare the more structured/skilled concept of a crew, and the advantages of formal and informal partnerships.

Team size, composition, and formation[link]

Team size and composition affect the team processes and outcomes. The optimal size (and composition) of teams is debated and will vary depending on the task at hand. At least one study of problem-solving in groups showed an optimal size of groups at four members. Other works estimate the optimal size between 5-12 members.^{[citation needed]} Belbin did extensive research on teams prior to 1990 in the UK that clearly demonstrated that the optimum team size is 8 roles plus a specialist as needed.^[2] Fewer than 5 members results in decreased perspectives and diminished creativity. Membership in excess of 12 results in increased conflict and greater potential of sub-groups forming.

David Cooperrider suggests that the larger the group, the better. This is because a larger group is able to address concerns of the whole system. So while a large team may be ineffective at performing a given task, Cooperider says that the relevance of that task should be considered, because determining whether the team is effective first requires identifying what needs to be accomplished.

Regarding composition, all teams will have an element of homogeneity and heterogeneity. The more homogeneous the group, the more cohesive it will be. The more heterogeneous the group, the greater the differences in perspective and increased potential for creativity, but also the greater potential for conflict.

Team members normally have different roles, like team leader and agents. Large teams can divide into sub-teams according to need.

Many teams go through a life-cycle of stages, identified by Bruce Tuckman as: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.

Types of teams[link]

Independent and interdependent teams[link]

A rugby union scrum

Of particular importance is the concept of different types of teams. A distinction is usually drawn between "independent" and "interdependent" teams. To continue the sports team example, a rugby team is clearly an interdependent team:

• no significant task can be accomplished without the help and cooperation of any of the members;
• within that team members typically specialize in different tasks (running the ball, goal kicking & scrum feeding), and
• the success of every individual is inextricably bound to the success of the whole team. No rugby player, no matter how talented, has ever won a game by playing alone.

On the other hand, a chess or bowling team is a classic example of an independent team:

• matches are played and won, or points are scored, by individuals or partners;
• every person performs basically the same actions;
• how one player performs has no direct effect on the performance of the next player. If all team members each perform the same basic tasks, such as students working problems in a math class, or outside sales employees making phone calls, then it is likely that this team is an independent team. They may be able to help each other — perhaps by offering advice or practice time, by providing moral support, or by helping in the background during a busy time — but each individual's success is primarily due to each individual's own efforts. Chess players do not win their own matches merely because the rest of their teammates did, and math students do not pass tests merely because their neighbours know how to solve the equations.

Coaching an "interdependent" team like a football team necessarily requires a different approach from coaching an "independent" team because the costs and benefits to individual team members — and therefore the intrinsic incentives for positive team behaviors — are very different. An interdependent team benefits from getting to know the other team members socially, from developing trust in each other, and from conquering artificial challenges (such as offered in outdoors ropes courses).

Project teams[link]

A team used only for a defined period of time and for a separate, concretely definable purpose, often becomes known as a project team. Managers commonly label groups of people as a "team" based on having a common function. Members of these teams might belong to different groups, but receive assignment to activities for the same project, thereby allowing outsiders to view them as a single unit. In this way, setting up a team allegedly facilitates the creation, tracking and assignment of a group of people based on the project in hand. The use of the "team" label in this instance often has no relationship to whether the employees are working as a team.

Sports teams[link]

A sports team is a group of people which play a sport together. Members include all players (even those who are waiting their turn to play) as well as support members such as a team manager or coach.

Virtual teams[link]

Developments in communications technologies have seen the emergence of the virtual work team. A virtual team is a group of people who work interdependently and with shared purpose across space, time, and organisation boundaries using technology to communicate and collaborate. Virtual team members can be located across a country or across the world, rarely meet face-to-face, and include members from different cultures.^[3] Ale Ebrahim, N., Ahmed, S. & Taha, Z. in their recent (2009) literature review paper, added two key issues to definition of a virtual team “as small temporary groups of geographically, organizationally and/ or time dispersed knowledge workers who coordinate their work predominantly with electronic information and communication technologies in order to accomplish one or more organization tasks”.^[4] Many virtual teams are cross-functional and emphasis solving customer problems or generating new work processes. The United States Labour Department reported that in 2001, 19 million people worked from home online or from another location, and that by the end of 2002, over 100 million people world-wide would be working outside traditional offices.^[5]

Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary teams[link]

Teams, such as in medical fields, may be interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary.^[6] Multidisciplinary teams involve several professionals who independently treat various issues a patient may have, focusing on the issues in which they specialise. The problems that are being treated may or may not relate to other issues being addressed by individual team members. Interdisciplinary team approach involves all members of the team working together towards the same goal. In an interdisciplinary team approach, there can often be role blending by members of the core team, who may take on tasks usually filled by other team members.^[6]

Not all groups are teams[link]

Some people also use the word "team" when they mean "employees." A "sales team" is a common example of this loose or perhaps euphemistic usage, though inter dependencies exist in organisations, and a sales team can be let down by poor performance on other parts of the organisation upon which sales depend, like delivery, after-sales service, etc.. However "sales staff" is a more precise description of the typical arrangement.

From groups to teams[link]

Groups develop into teams in four stages. The four stages are: dependency and inclusion, counter dependency and fighting, trust and structure, and work. In the first stage, group development is characterized by members' dependency on the designated leader. In the second stage, the group seeks to free itself from its dependence on the leader and groups have conflicts about goals and procedures. In the third stage, the group manages to work through the conflicts. And in the last stage, groups focus on team productivity.^{[7][clarification needed]}

See also[link]

• Air-defense experiments
• Coalition
• Community
• Forming-storming-norming-performing
• Group (sociology)
• Groups of people
• Team Action Management
• Judge–advisor system
• Teamwork
• Team building
• Player
• Virtual team
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
• Driving (horse)
• Team Composition

References[link]

Look up teem or team in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.