This paper examines the impact of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on college
students’ drinking behavior using a nationally representative sample of
American institutions. While success in intercollegiate athletics may
augment the visibility of a university to prospective students and
thereby benefit the school, it may also have a negative effect on the
current student body by influencing risky behavior, especially the
consumption of alcohol commonly associated with game day festivities.
Using the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study (CAS), the authors find that a school’s participation in the NCAA Tournament is
associated with a 30% increase in binge drinking and a 9% increase in
self-reported drunk driving by male students at that school. The results
suggest that this increase is not offset by less alcohol use before or
after the tournament (intertemporal substitution) but instead seems to
represent a net increase in the amount of alcohol consumed by students
at participating schools.
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