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"Estimated Costs of Contact in College and High School Male Sports," with Christopher Champa, Journal of Sports Economics, 2019.

Paper: pdf file
Abstract

Injury rates in twelve U.S. men's college sports and five U.S. boys' high school sports are examined in this paper. The sports are categorized as ``contact'' or ``non-contact,'' and differences in injury rates between the two are examined. Injury rates in the contact sports are considerably higher than those in the non-contact sports and they are on average more severe. Estimates are presented of the injury savings that would result if the contact sports were changed to have injury rates similar to those in the non-contact sports. The estimated college savings are 48,100 fewer injuries per year and 5,900 fewer healthy years lost-to-injury per year. The estimated high school savings are 568,600 fewer injuries per year and 92,000 fewer healthy years lost-to-injury per year. For concussions the savings are 6,900 per year for college and 161,400 per year for high school. The estimated dollar value (in 2015 dollars) of the total injury savings is between $433 million and $1.5 billion per year for college and between $5.1 billion and $18.4 billion per year for high school.