Does watching football lead to domestic violence?
The 49ers play the BearsLater this week, families across the country will sit down for their annual turkey dinner. In many households, this will be followed immediately by another Thanksgiving tradition: switching on the TV to watch grown men bash one another to near-unconsciousness on the football field. That this ritual may be hazardous to the players’ health is obvious, but new research reported in a National Bureau of Economic Research study argues that just watching football can be harmful to fans and their families. Based on domestic violence police reports from the years 1995-2006, the report finds that when an NFL game ends in an upset, the home state of the losing team experiences a sudden, brief uptick in domestic violence.
