In recent years, many schools have lifted their alcohol sales bans at college football games, possibly as a tool to increase attendance and revenues. However, spillovers to crime deserve consideration, given the research that links alcohol consumption and availability to crime. Alcohol sales may spill over to crime through their impacts on attendance, preferences for alcohol consumption among fans, and endogenous changes to policing and enforcement, although the net effect on crime is theoretically ambiguous. Using data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) over the 2005 to 2016 period for law enforcement agencies that serve 33 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools, and utilizing difference-in-differences (DD) and triple-differences empirical strategies (leveraging variation in pre-vs. post-sales periods, home vs. away game days, and sales-adopting vs. non-adopting schools), I find that alcohol sales are associated with reductions in arrests for liquor law violations (83.5 percent) and disorderly conduct (81.0 percent) on home game days.
AndersonD. M.CrostB.ReesD. I. (2018). Wet laws, drinking establishments and violent crime. The Economic Journal, 128(611), 1333–1366. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12451
2.
AngristJ. D.PischkeJ. S. (2009). Mostly harmless econometrics: An empiricist’s companion. Princeton University Press.
3.
AugustinJ.TrauguttA.MorseA. L. (2018). The effects of beer sales on attendance at collegiate football games. Journal of SPORT, 6(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.21038/sprt.2018.0611
4.
BanduraA. (1973). Aggression: A social learning analysis. Prentice-Hall.
5.
BarryA. E.RussellA.HowellS.PhanP.ReyesD.BoppT. (2019). (Unintended) consequences of initiating an alcohol sales policy at college football stadiums: A case study. Journal of American College Health, 67(5), 397–401. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2018.1484366
6.
BidermanC.De MelloJ. M.SchneiderA. (2010). Dry laws and homicides: Evidence from the São Paulo metropolitan area. The Economic Journal, 120(543), 157–182. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2009.02299.x
BormannC. A.StoneM. H. (2001). The effects of eliminating alcohol in a college stadium: The Folsom field beer ban. Journal of American College Health, 50(2), 81–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448480109596011
9.
BoyesW. J.FaithR. L. (1993). Temporal regulation and intertemporal substitution: The effect of banning alcohol at college football games. Public Choice, 77(3), 595–609. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01047862
10.
BranscombeN. R.WannD. L. (1992). Role of identification with a group, arousal, categorization processes, and self-esteem in sports spectator aggression. Human Relations, 45(10), 1013–1033. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872679204501001
CameronA. C.MillerD. L. (2015). A practitioner’s guide to cluster-robust inference. Journal of Human Resources, 50(2), 317–372. https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.50.2.317
13.
CardD.DahlG. B. (2011). Family violence and football: The effect of unexpected emotional cues on violent behavior. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126(1), 103–143. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjr001
14.
CarpenterC. (2007). Heavy alcohol use and crime: evidence from underage drunk-driving laws. The Journal of Law and Economics, 50(3), 539–557. https://doi.org/10.1086/519809
15.
CarpenterC.DobkinC. (2010). Alcohol regulation and crime. In P. J. Cook, J. Ludwig & J. McCrary (Eds.), Controlling crime: Strategies and tradeoffs (pp. 291–329). University of Chicago Press.
16.
CarpenterC.DobkinC. (2015). The minimum legal drinking age and crime. Review of Economics and Statistics, 97(2), 521–524. https://doi.org/10.1162/REST_a_00489
17.
ChastainA. J.GohmannS. F.StephensonE. F. (2017). Beer availability and college football attendance: Evidence from mid-Major conferences. Journal of Sports Economics, 18(6), 592–600. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527002515589351
GlassmanT.WerchC. E.JobliE.BianH. (2007). Alcohol-related fan behavior on college football game day. Journal of American College Health, 56(3), 255–260. https://doi.org/10.3200/JACH.56.3.255-260
22.
GlassmanT. J.DoddV. J.SheuJ.-J.RienzoB. A.WagenaarA. C. (2010). Extreme ritualistic alcohol consumption among college students on game day. Journal of American College Health, 58(5), 413–423. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448480903540473
23.
GruenewaldP. J.FreisthlerB.RemerL.LaScalaE. A.TrenoA. (2006). Ecological models of alcohol outlets and violent assaults: Crime potentials and geospatial analysis. Addiction, 101(5), 666–677. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2006.01405.x
HuangK.DixonM. A. (2013). Examining the financial impact of alcohol sales on football game days: A case study of a major football program. Journal of Sport Management, 27(3), 207–216. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsm.27.3.207
28.
ItoT. A.MillerN.PollockV. E. (1996). Alcohol and aggression: A meta-analysis on the moderating effects of inhibitory cues, triggering events, and self-focused attention. Psychological Bulletin, 120(1), 60–82. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.120.1.60
29.
KlineP.SantosA. (2012). A score based approach to wild bootstrap inference. Journal of Econometric Methods, 1(1), 23–41. https://doi.org/10.1515/2156-6674.1006
30.
LigonJ.ThyerB. A. (1993). The effects of a sunday liquor sales ban on DUI arrests. Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education, 38(2), 33–40. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45091985
31.
LindoJ. M.SiminskiP.SwensenI. D. (2018). College party culture and sexual assault. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 10(1), 236–265. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20160031
32.
LindoJ. M.SwensenI. D.WaddellG. R. (2012). Are big-time sports a threat to student achievement?American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 4(4), 254–274. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.4.4.254
MarcusJ.SiedlerT. (2015). Reducing binge drinking? The effect of a ban on late-night off-premise alcohol sales on alcohol-related hospital stays in Germany. Journal of Public Economics, 123, 55–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.12.010
MenakerB. E.ChaneyB. H. (2014). College football game day stadium incidents: Policy and environmental effects on alcohol-related ejections and crime. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 6(2), 119–134. https://doi.org/10.1080/19407963.2014.895286
37.
MerloL. J.AhmedaniB. K.BarondessD. A.BohnertK. M.GoldM. S. (2011). Alcohol consumption associated with collegiate American football pre-game festivities. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 116(1–3), 242–245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2010.12.013
38.
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (2021). National Incident-Based Reporting System, 2016: Extract Files. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor]. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37066.v2
NealD. J.FrommeK. (2007). Hook ‘em horns and heavy drinking: Alcohol use and collegiate sports. Addictive Behaviors, 32(11), 2681–2693. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2007.06.020
ScribnerR.CohenD.KaplanS.AllenS. H. (1999). Alcohol availability and homicide in New Orleans: Conceptual considerations for small area analysis of the effect of alcohol outlet density. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 60(3), 310–316. https://doi.org/10.15288/jsa.1999.60.310
45.
ScribnerR. A.MacKinnonD. P.DwyerJ. H. (1995). The risk of assaultive violence and alcohol availability in Los Angeles County. American Journal of Public Health, 85(3), 335–340. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.85.3.335
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
