YOUR FAVORITE MTV SHOWS ARE ON PARAMOUNT+

Sexual Assault On Campuses Is Even Worse After Football Games

Especially when the home team wins, according to a new study.

Sexual assault on college campuses remains a huge problem. Now, a new study shows that after big football games, the number of sexual assaults reported spikes to even higher levels -- especially when the home team wins.

The study, which was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research and looked at Division 1 colleges across the country, found that the number of sexual assaults reported by victims ages 17-24 increased by 28 percent on game days. During home games, the number of assaults reported went up by 41 percent, as opposed to 15 percent for away games.

Getty

GettyImages-569034815

The researchers also observed an increase in the number of assaults committed by strangers. Although the majority of sexual assaults are committed by someone the survivor knows, researchers found that during home games, reports of assault by a stranger increased by 61 percent, while reports of assaults from known offenders increased by just 28 percent.

The researchers made it clear that football isn't directly to blame -- it's the partying that goes along with games.

"Division I football games offer a clear instance [when] partying is intensified," Montana State University’s Isaac Swensen, one of the report's authors, told Bloomberg News.

Bloomberg also estimated that the research suggests "football games cause between 253 and 770 additional rapes per year," and noted that the study revealed "Upset wins increased reports of rape while upset losses did not ... That supports the idea that the increase in reported rapes may be tied to intensified partying around football games. Upset wins also increased arrests for drunkenness, while upset losses had no such effect..."

The researchers suggested that while they aren't necessarily out to shut down football games, they do hope their research will help curb the spikes in "partying" that lead to increased numbers of sexual assaults, writing, "By providing convincing evidence that spikes in the degree of partying at a university escalate the incidence of rape, our results suggest that efforts to avoid such spikes could serve to reduce the incidence of rape."

Latest News