The Football Bowl Subdivision is the highest level of collegiate football and consists of some of the biggest public and private institutions in the United States.
At these institutions, football home games consume the entire campus and one of the ugly consequences is a rise in reported rapes.
For their study, the National Bureau of Economic Research compiled data from the FBI as well as 138 local and campus police forces, according to The Huffington Post. The NBER looked at reported rapes on 96 campuses of schools with an NCAA Division 1 football program, 55 of which from the FBS and 41 from the Football Championship Subdivision.
Schools in the FBS experienced a 41 percent spike in reported rapes when the football team played a home game. At schools with teams playing in the FCS, a lower level of competition in Div. 1, reported rapes rose by about 31 percent. The report found no such increase at schools with Div. 2 or 3 football programs.
The FBS, particularly the Power 5 conferences, generates billions of dollars every season in tickets, memorabilia, and massive television contracts. With so much attention being paid these football games, there is usually a large number of outsiders coming to campus on a home game.
The NBER found the amount of reported rapes involving a perpetrator the victim does not know to rise by 61 percent. Previous research on campus sexual assault has indicated women in college know their rapist nine times out of 10, The HP noted.
"What we really wanted to do in this study is to quantify the degree to which partying and alcohol consumption actually cause increases in reports of rape, and that's why we decide to investigate the effects of Division I football games," Jason Lindo, an associate professor of economics at Texas A&M University who co-authored the study, told The HP.
The study shows how rape culture on college campuses collides with football culture, especially at schools nationally noted for their football teams. Lisa Maatz, vice president of government relations for the American Association Of University Women, argued the data should not be considered a college or a football problem.
"[The problem] is just rape culture overall, and that's not exclusive by any stretch to college campuses," she told The HP. "It's an important area of research but it does not solve the problem or answer all the questions."
