Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T17:45:09.688Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sports Franchises, Events, and City Livability: An Examination of Spectator Sports and Crime Rates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Robert Baumann ,
Taylor Ciavarra ,
Bryan Englehardt  and
Victor A. Matheson
Robert Baumann
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, USA
Taylor Ciavarra
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, USA
Bryan Englehardt
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, USA
Victor A. Matheson
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, USA
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

We estimate the impact of sporting events and franchises on local crime rates using the technique developed in Arellano and Bond (2001). For events, we consider the presence of Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Football League and National Hockey League franchises as well as whether a city held one of the respective championships, the Olympics, or World Cup matches. We find little to no evidence that sporting events or franchises are correlated with changes in either property or violent crime with two notable exceptions. The Olympics Games are associated with roughly a 10 per cent increase in property crimes while the Super Bowl is associated with a 2.5 per cent decrease in violent crime. On the whole, however, the presence of spectator sports does not seem to automatically carry with it any improvements in citywide criminal behaviour.

Keywords

L83O18R53Crimesports economics
Type
Symposium
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 23 , Issue 2: Sport Economics , June 2012 , pp. 83 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2012

References

Arellano, M., Bond, S. (1991) ‘Some tests of specification for panel data: Monte Carlo evidence and an application to employment equations’, Review of Economic Studies, 58(2), pp. 277–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, G., Mourato, S., Szymanski, S., Ozdemiroglu, E. (2008) ‘Are we willing to pay enough to “back the bid”?: Valuing the intangible impacts of London’s bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games’, Urban Studies, 45(2), pp. 419–444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baade, R., Matheson, V. (2002) ‘Bidding for the Olympics: Fool’s gold?’ in Pestana, C., Barros, M. Ibrahimo, Szymanski, S. (eds) Transatlantic Sport: The Comparative Economics of North American and European Sports, Edward Elgar Publishing, London, pp. 127–151.Google Scholar
Baade, R., Baumann, R., Matheson, V. (2008) ‘Selling the game: Estimating the economic impact of professional sports through taxable sales’, Southern Economic Journal, 74(3), pp. 794–810.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumann, R., Matheson, V., Muroi, C. (2009) ‘Bowling in Hawaii: Examining the effectiveness of sports-based tourism strategies’, Journal of Sports Economics, 10(1), pp. 107–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, G. (1968) ‘Crime and punishment: An economic approach’, Journal of Political Economy, 76, pp. 169–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bond, S. (2002) ‘Dynamic panel data models: A guide to micro data methods and practice’, Portuguese Economic Journal, 1, pp. 141–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlino, G., Coulson, E. (2004) ‘Compensating differentials and the social benefits of the NFL’, Journal of Urban Economics, 56(1), pp. 25–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Card, D., Dahl, G. (2009) ‘Family violence and football: The effect of unexpected emotional cues on violent behavior’, NBER Working Paper No. 15497.Google Scholar
Coates, D., Humphreys, B. (2002) ‘The economic impact of post-season play in professional sports’, Journal of Sports Economics, 3(3), pp. 291–299.Google Scholar
Coates, D., Matheson, V. (2011) ‘Mega-events and housing costs: Raising the rent while raising the roof?’, Annals of Regional Science, 46(1), pp. 119–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, M. (1988) ‘Pain, suffering, and jury awards: A study of the cost of crime to victims’. Law and Society Review, 22(3), pp. 537–556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dehring, C., Depken, C., Ward, M. (2007) ‘The impact of stadium announcements on residential property values: Evidence from a natural experiment in Dallas-Ft. Worth’, Contemporary Economic Policy, 25(4), pp. 627–638.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehrlich, I. (1973) ‘Participation in illegitimate activities: A theoretical and empirical investigation’, The Journal of Political Economy, 81, pp. 521–565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ESPN (2011) ‘Ray Lewis discusses lockout issues’, 25 May, available: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=6575570 [accessed 3 June 2011].Google Scholar
Gould, E., Weinberg, B., Mustard, D. (2002) ‘Crime rates and local labor market opportunities in the United States: 1979–1997’, The Review of Economics and Statistics, 84(1), pp. 45–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grogger, J. (1998) ‘Market wages and youth crime’, Journal of Labor Economics, 16(4), pp. 76–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groothuis, P., Johnson, B., Whitehead, J. (2004) ‘Public funding of professional sports stadiums: Public choice or civic pride?’, Eastern Economic Journal, 30(4), pp. 515–526.Google Scholar
Hagn, F., Maennig, W. (2008) ‘Employment effects of the football World Cup 1974 in Germany’, Labour Economics, 15(5), pp. 1062–1075.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, L. (1982) ‘Large sample properties of generalized method of moments estimators’, Econometrica, 50(4), pp. 1029–1054.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HTA (Hawaii Tourism Authority) (2007) HTA 2007 Annual Report to the Hawaii State Legislature, available: http://www.hawaiitourismauthority.org [accessed 31 December 2011].Google Scholar
Holtz-Eakin, D., Newey, W., Rosen, H. (1988) ‘Estimating vector autoregressions with panel data, Econometrica, 56(6), pp. 1371–1395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphreys, J., Plummer, M. (1995) The economic impact on the State of Georgia of hosting the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, Mimeograph, Selig Center for Economic Growth, The University of Georgia.Google Scholar
Im, K., Pesaran, H., Shin, Y. (2003) ‘Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels’, Journal of Econometrics, 115(1), pp. 53–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, B., Groothuis, P., Whitehead, J. (2001) ‘The value of public goods generated by a major league sports team: The CVM approach’, Journal of Sports Economics, 2(1), pp. 6–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levin, A., Lin, C., Chu, C. (2002) ‘Unit root tests in panel data: Asymptotic and finite sample properties’, Journal of Econometrics, 108(1), pp. 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitt, S. (1998) ‘The Relationship between crime reporting and police: Implications for the use of uniform crime reports’, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 14(1), pp. 61–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lochner, L. (2004) ‘Education, work, and crime: A human capital approach’, International Economic Review, 45(3), pp. 811–843.Google Scholar
Maennig, W (2007) ‘One year later: A re-appraisal of the economics of the 2006 Soccer World Cup’, International Association of Sports Economists Working Paper Series, No. 07–25.Google Scholar
National Football League (1999) ‘Super Bowl XXXIII generates $396 million for South Florida’, NFL Report, 58(7).Google Scholar
Oregon Baseball Campaign (2002) ‘Why MLB, why Oregon, why now?’, available: http://www.oregonbaseballcompaign.com/fact.htm [accessed 5 September 2002].Google Scholar
Pesaran, H. (2007) ‘A simple panel unit root test in the presence of cross-section dependence’, Journal of Applied Econometrics, 22(2), pp. 265–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rees, D., Schnepel, K. (2009) ‘College football games and crime’, Journal of Sports Economics, 10(1), pp. 68–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roodman, D. (2006). ‘How to do xtabond2: An introduction to “difference” and “system” GMM in Stata’, Working Paper 103, Center for Global Development, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Selig, B., Harrington, J., Healey, J. (1999) ‘New ballpark press briefing: July 12, 1999’, available: http://www.asapsports.com/baseball/1999allstar/071299BS.html [accessed 29 August 2000].Google Scholar
Tu, C. (2005) ‘How does a new sports stadium affect housing values? The case of FedEx Field’, Land Economics, 81(3), pp. 379–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Windmeijer, F. (2005) ‘A finite sample correction for the variance of linear two-step GMM estimators’, Journal of Econometrics, 126(1), pp. 25–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wooldridge, J. (2002) Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach, Second edition, South-Western College Publishers, New York.Google Scholar