IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jconrs/doi10.1086-660164.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Bad Thing about Good Games: The Relationship between Close Sporting Events and Game-Day Traffic Fatalities

Author

Listed:
  • Stacy Wood
  • Melayne Morgan McInnes
  • David A. Norton

Abstract

For sports fans, great games are the close ones--those between evenly matched opponents, where the game remains undecided until the very end. However, the dark side to sporting events is the incidence of traffic fatalities due to game-related drinking. Here, we ask whether the closeness of the game affects the number of fatalities that occur. Two opposing predictions can be made. Games that are not close ("blowouts") may be less engaging, thus increasing drinking. Alternatively, close games may be more dangerous, increasing competition-associated testosterone that spills over into aggressive driving. An analysis of major sporting events (2001-8) shows that closer games are significantly correlated with more fatalities. Importantly, increased fatalities are observed only in locations with winning fans (game site and/or winners' hometown), congruent with a testosterone-based account. Ultimately, this finding has material consequences for public welfare on game days and suggests that one silver lining for losing fans may be a safer drive home.

Suggested Citation

  • Stacy Wood & Melayne Morgan McInnes & David A. Norton, 2011. "The Bad Thing about Good Games: The Relationship between Close Sporting Events and Game-Day Traffic Fatalities," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 38(4), pages 611-621.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jconrs:doi:10.1086/660164
    DOI: 10.1086/660164
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/660164
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/660164
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/660164?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dustin R. White & Benjamin W. Cowan & Jadrian J. Wooten, 2019. "March Madness: Ncaa Tournament Participation And College Alcohol Use," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(3), pages 449-461, July.
    2. Kikuta,Kyosuke & Uesugi.Mamoru, 2022. "Do politically irrelevant events cause conflict? the cross-continental effects of European professional football on protests in Africa," IDE Discussion Papers 866, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    3. Kikuta, Kyosuke & Uesugi, Mamoru, 2023. "Do Politically Irrelevant Events Cause Conflict? The Cross-continental Effects of European Professional Football on Protests in Africa," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(1), pages 179-216, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:jconrs:doi:10.1086/660164. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/jcr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.