Blood Alcohol Levels of Attendees at Professional Sporting Events

Alcohol sales and consumption are often focal points at professional sporting events in the U.S. and throughout the world. Alcohol-related problems are also common at these events; however, alcohol consumption and related issues at professional sports stadiums in the U.S have not been systematically evaluated. As one step toward understanding alcohol consumption levels at stadiums, we assessed blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) of attendees at professional sporting events in the U.S. between May and October 2006. We conducted alcohol breath tests of 382 attendees as they exited 13 professional baseball and 3 professional football games, and also asked each participant to complete a short survey. We found that 43% of participants had a positive BAC; among these over half had a BAC > .05 and over one-fourth had a BAC over the legal driving limit of .08. Those attending football (vs. baseball) games were more likely to have positive BACs, and those who had tailgated before the event were more likely than those who had not tailgated to have higher BACs. Men and participants between ages of 21 and 35 (vs. older than 35) were also more likely to have higher BACs. We will discuss implications of these results as well as present results of additional bivariate and multivariate analyses.