Organizational structure and home team performance

Purpose The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate that organizational task interdependence has an impact on the performance of home teams in sport. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses a cross‐sectional research design. It tests the authors' hypothesis using a probit analysis of nine years of data from Major League Baseball and eight years of data from the National Hockey League. Findings The paper determines that the underlying task interdependence of a sport has a significant impact on the performance of a sport team. Originality/value The paper argues that sport managers need to consider organizational structure when accounting for team performance. Moreover, the structure of the sport(s) needs to be considered when making adjustments to the league(s) that might affect the competitive balance.