The Association Between Professional Football Games and Domestic Violence in Los Angeles County

Abstract

This article explores the association between professional football games and domestic violence (DV) by performing an ecological time trend analysis of Los Angeles Sheriff Department's (LASD) data from January 1, 1993, to December 31, 1995. Mean weekly DV dispatch increase in the 1993-1994 football season was 69% during nonfootball season compared with 100% during football season (p = 0.09), 147% during playoff weeks, and 264% during Super Bowl (SB) week. Mean weekly increase over the entire time period was 63% during nonfootball season compared with 74% during total football season (p = 0.26), 74% during playoff weeks, and 101% during SB weeks. Overall, authors failed to observe a statistically significant association between DV police dispatches and the timing of professional football in Los Angeles County. Impressive increases in dispatches, however, were noted during the 1993-1994 playoff and Super Bowl weeks that could not be tested due to insufficient sample size.