Red Advantage in Combat Sports

What it is

The claim is that wearing red is associated with a higher probability of winning a contest, especially when the bout is close. Russell Hill and Robert Barton published the 2005 paper in Nature that opened the question, and the claim spread into discussion of colour, dominance and status.

The 2024 meta-analysis, by Leonard Peperkoorn, Russell Hill, Robert Barton and Thomas Pollet, notes that the red advantage had not been examined systematically across multiple tournaments and sets out to do so.

In effect

The meta-analysis analysed 6,589 contest outcomes in boxing, taekwondo and wrestling from seven Summer Olympic Games between 1996 and 2020 and nine World Boxing Championships between 2005 and 2021. Across the whole dataset, red won 50.5 per cent of bouts, which was not a statistically significant bias. In close contests red won 51.5 per cent, also not significantly different from an even split.

Before 2005, when the advantage was first reported and before changes to tournament rules, red won 56.8 per cent of close bouts, which gave some support for an advantage. The authors raise the possibility that knowledge of the effect, together with rule changes in each sport, reduced the chance of a small effect showing up, leading to its disappearance from competition results.

What it does not say

The concept concerns athletes in contests. It does not test logos, packs or any brand, and a transfer of dominance from an athlete to a brand colour is an inference, not a result. The authors' explanation for the fading advantage is stated as a possibility. The 2005 paper is cited here by title and is not summarised.

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