Oral

Alcohol use by attendees at professional and intercollegiate sporting events is related to alcohol-related problems, including traffic crashes, injuries, and assaults. Although few studies focusing on alcohol use at sport stadiums have been published, behavior of intoxicated and unruly fans at major sporting events has been a topic of many news stories. For example, a drunken fan attacked an umpire on the field at a Chicago White Sox baseball game in May of 2000. At a San Diego Chargers football game in October of 2004, three Chargers fans beat a fan from the opposing team unconscious—the local mayor stated that more needs to be done to “prevent fan violence by enforcing laws against selling alcohol to people who are drunk.” The risk of alcohol-related problems at sport stadiums is considerable if you consider the number of attendees at these sporting events where alcohol is often heavily consumed. Considering only professional baseball, hockey, football, and basketball, there are 100 stadiums in the U.S. and 5,146 regular season games scheduled each year. The total estimated attendance at these games for one year was over 130 million. The magnitude of the potential problems is even greater if we include the number of attendees at intercollegiate sporting events. In this session, we will present the results of studies assessing levels of alcohol use at these sporting events, propensity for illegal alcohol sales at professional sport stadiums, alcohol control policies at stadiums, and level of enforcement to prevent alcohol-related problems at stadiums.

Session Objectives: 1. Describe the propensity for illegal alcohol sales at professional sport stadiums 2. Articulate the types and prevalence of alcohol control policies at sports stadiums 3. Discuss types and levels of enforcement at sports stadiums aimed at preventing alcohol-related problems 4. Describe levels of alcohol use and blood alcohol measures among attendees at sporting events

CE Credits: CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing