Along those lines, what precisely does "national appeal" and "crowd involvement" accomplish? I could speculate, but I would prefer someone else's knowledge.
National appeal gives you a bit of an edge on the road, crowd involvement helps you at home. Joseph Ka's study showed that the effect of each specialty is to reduce your opponent's ratings by a bit... Which makes sense to me. I never noticed a difference in my game ratings with these specialties but I never thought to look at my opponent's game ratings.
Run of the Mill Canadian Manager