Does Having a Professional Sports Team Impact the Crime Rate of a City?
Abstract
In the United States alone there are 42 different cities with professional sports teams. On average, professional sports teams bring in around 227 million dollars per year in revenue. Professional sports teams clearly have a major impact on the economy of local cities and these economies can impact other characteristics of the city such as crime rates. Using city-level data from the Uniform Crime Report over the years 2000-2014, I estimate whether the presence of professional sports teams affects city crime rates. I plan on using an ordinary least squares technique to see how the addition of a sports team to a city impacts its crime rate. There is not much prior research on this topic, but the research that has been done looks strictly at crime rates and how they are affected the day that a sports team has a game. Previous research also only looks at a few different cities. My research adds to this literature because my data consists of 38 cities and looks at annual crime rates. I believe by analyzing annual crime rates, I will be able to determine the overall effect that professional sports teams have on city crime rates. I hypothesize that professional sports teams will increase crime rates in a city.
Does Having a Professional Sports Team Impact the Crime Rate of a City?
In the United States alone there are 42 different cities with professional sports teams. On average, professional sports teams bring in around 227 million dollars per year in revenue. Professional sports teams clearly have a major impact on the economy of local cities and these economies can impact other characteristics of the city such as crime rates. Using city-level data from the Uniform Crime Report over the years 2000-2014, I estimate whether the presence of professional sports teams affects city crime rates. I plan on using an ordinary least squares technique to see how the addition of a sports team to a city impacts its crime rate. There is not much prior research on this topic, but the research that has been done looks strictly at crime rates and how they are affected the day that a sports team has a game. Previous research also only looks at a few different cities. My research adds to this literature because my data consists of 38 cities and looks at annual crime rates. I believe by analyzing annual crime rates, I will be able to determine the overall effect that professional sports teams have on city crime rates. I hypothesize that professional sports teams will increase crime rates in a city.