Football is back!!!

After a labor conflict in the NFL, the regular season of football is back. Fans are ecstatic. Bigger televisions are being purchased, calls are being made to cable companies to ensure that bills are paid and the NFL Network will come into their living room uninterrupted, and those that know they could do a better job than most league GM’s are starting their own fantasy leagues with the most creative team names possible (my personal favorite: Over Dwayne Bowe). Along with the great excitement that is the start of the football season, I feel it my duty to warn you that there are some downsides to the upcoming football season.

Many men are passionate about their teams. They go to extremes to show how big of a fan they really are. For some a jersey of their favorite player is not enough. These fans decal their cars, hang the team flag proudly from their front door, and buy the spiked shoulder pads to wear to work on Friday to let their coworkers know that they are a card carrying member of Raider Nation.

This passion leads men to celebrate when their team wins. They let their emotions get the better of them, like when they attempt a flying chest bump with their buddy, which ends up costing the host of the game a coffee table. But just as victory leads to elated shouts of joys, defeat can cause equally strong emotions.

A recent study by David Card and Gordon Dahl, two economists, showed that upset victories can have a significant impact on domestic violence. They test whether emotional cues can increase the risk of violence of men towards their wives or girlfriends. To do this they look at football games where a team was favored to win by at least 4 points, and find that at-home violence increases 10 percent when the favored teams loses. These incidents of violence occur shortly after the end of the game and are larger for more important games. They also look at games that we suppose to be closer, that is with a smaller predicted point spread. They find no evidence that the outcome of these games contributes to domestic violence.

So to those stalwart fans out there: wear the cheese on your head, waive your terrible towel, spell out your teams name, and scream like a maniac when your team wins. But if your team loses, take a breath, prepare for next week, and hope you didn’t start Peyton Manning in your fantasy league in week 1.

To read the study click here "Family Violence and Football: The Effect of Unexpected Emotional Cues on Violent Behavior"