IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v99y2018i3p915-932.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risks and Rewards of College Football: Who Would Accept a Scholarship Knowing the Chances of Physical Harm?

Author

Listed:
  • Molly Ott
  • Barry Bozeman
  • Gabel Taggart

Abstract

Objective Over the past decade, increased scrutiny has been given to health‐related consequences of participating in American football. This study considers whether the known risk has affected individuals’ willingness to play at the intercollegiate level. Methods Drawing from a survey of 726 adult males, this study uses quantitative experimental vignette methodology to investigate factors associated with the self‐conscious choice to risk brain damage in exchange for a football scholarship. Results Respondents whose mothers’ highest level of education was high school or lower were especially willing to assume the known long‐term risk associated with playing college football, as were African Americans. Conclusions The findings may foreshadow a moral quandary should radical changes to football player safety not occur soon. If the sport's physical risks are acceptable mainly to those from historically disadvantaged backgrounds, it could be difficult for presidents, faculty, and other stakeholders to allow young men to represent their universities in this capacity.

Suggested Citation

  • Molly Ott & Barry Bozeman & Gabel Taggart, 2018. "Risks and Rewards of College Football: Who Would Accept a Scholarship Knowing the Chances of Physical Harm?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 99(3), pages 915-932, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:99:y:2018:i:3:p:915-932
    DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12491
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12491
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ssqu.12491?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Garrick Blalock & David R. Just & Daniel H. Simon, 2007. "Hitting the Jackpot or Hitting the Skids: Entertainment, Poverty, and the Demand for State Lotteries," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(3), pages 545-570, July.
    2. Becker, Gary S, 1993. "Nobel Lecture: The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 385-409, June.
    3. Robert Brown, 2011. "Research Note: Estimates of College Football Player Rents," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(2), pages 200-212, April.
    4. Duncan Thomas & John Strauss & Maria-Helena Henriques, 1991. "How Does Mother's Education Affect Child Height?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(2), pages 183-211.
    5. Nigel Nicholson & Emma Soane & Mark Fenton-O'Creevy & Paul Willman, 2005. "Personality and domain-specific risk taking," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(2), pages 157-176, March.
    6. Smith, Vernon L, 1989. "Theory, Experiment and Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 151-169, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Guilhem Lecouteux, 2013. "Reconciling behavioural and neoclassical economics," Working Papers hal-00819763, HAL.
    2. John Conlisk, 1996. "Why Bounded Rationality?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 669-700, June.
    3. Cornelia Serena, PASCA, 2016. "The Human Capital - A Long Term Investment," Contemporary Economy Journal, Constantin Brancoveanu University, vol. 1(4), pages 51-62.
    4. Douglas Cumming & Lars Hornuf & Moein Karami & Denis Schweizer, 2023. "Disentangling Crowdfunding from Fraudfunding," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(4), pages 1103-1128, February.
    5. Marco R Steenbergen & Tomasz Siczek, 2017. "Better the devil you know? Risk-taking, globalization and populism in Great Britain," European Union Politics, , vol. 18(1), pages 119-136, March.
    6. Wang, Zongjun & Wang, Peng & Du, Yao & Lin, Chih-Yung, 2025. "The effect of CEO extraversion on private debt," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    7. Maria C. Lo Bue, 2024. "Drivers of changes in child nutritional conditions: A panel data‐based study on Indonesian households, 1997–2014," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 741-776, May.
    8. Jin, Justin & Nainar, Khalid & Sun, Chenwei, 2022. "Bank non-performing loans, loan charge-offs, and crime incidence," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    9. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2017. "Family Economics Writ Large," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1346-1434, December.
    10. Will, Matthias Georg & Hielscher, Stefan, 2013. "How do companies invest in corporate social responsibility? An ordonomic contribution for empirical CSR research," Discussion Papers 2013-3, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Chair of Economic Ethics.
    11. Sun, Ang & Zhao, Yaohui, 2016. "Divorce, abortion, and the child sex ratio: The impact of divorce reform in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 53-69.
    12. Sanchez, Alan & Jaramillo, Miguel, 2012. "Impacto del programa Juntos sobre la nutrición temprana," Revista Estudios Económicos, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú, issue 23, pages 53-66.
    13. Wilfred Amaldoss & Richard Staelin, 2010. "Cross-Function and Same-Function Alliances: How Does Alliance Structure Affect the Behavior of Partnering Firms?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(2), pages 302-317, February.
    14. Robin Maximilian Stetzka & Stefan Winter, 2023. "How rational is gambling?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1432-1488, September.
    15. Liza Darrous & Ninon Mounier & Zoltán Kutalik, 2021. "Simultaneous estimation of bi-directional causal effects and heritable confounding from GWAS summary statistics," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-15, December.
    16. Bouzguenda, Karima, 2018. "Emotional intelligence and financial decision making: Are we talking about a paradigmatic shift or a change in practices?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 273-284.
    17. Funk, Matt, 2008. "On the Problem of Sustainable Economic Development: A Theoretical Solution to this Prisoner's Dilemma," MPRA Paper 19025, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 08 Jun 2008.
    18. Ji, Sisi & Zhu, Zheyi, 2022. "Does higher education matter for health?," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2022/4, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    19. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Karen A. Kopecky, 2019. "The Wife's Protector: A Quantitative Theory Linking Contraceptive Technology with the Decline in Marriage," Working Papers wp2019_1912, CEMFI.
    20. Le, Dung D. & Molina, Teresa & Ibuka, Yoko & Goto, Rei, 2024. "The Intergenerational Health Effects of Child Marriage Bans," IZA Discussion Papers 17089, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:99:y:2018:i:3:p:915-932. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.