How much do sports fans drink at games? This study says 8% go home drunk

It’s hardly news that many sports fans drink before and during games, but how much they drink might be. In testing fans of professional football and baseball teams after a game, researchers found 40% had consumed alcohol and 8% were legally drunk.

A University of Minnesota preliminary study published online this week in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research tested blood alcohol levels for 362 adults as they were leaving 13 baseball games and three football games. Those with blood alcohol levels of .08 or greater were considered drunk. (Researchers note postgame testing of fans wasn’t the easiest task to perform.)

The study also found that tailgaters who drank before the game were 14 times more likely to drive legally drunk than those who hadn’t -- no surprise there. And fans younger than 35 were nine times more likely to be drunk than others. Here’s an abstract of the study.

And this Booster Shot reports on tailgaters and levels of drinking at college football games.

So if there’s a reeking-of-alcohol, out-of-control guy sitting near you at a game -- and there always seems to be -- just be glad the percentage of legally drunk fans isn’t higher.