The media gives plenty of coverage to the amount of arrests that go on in the major sporting leagues in the United States, in particular the NFL.
That coverage adds to a conception that there is a higher than average arrest rate across the sports, which is in fact not the case as they are lower than the national average for men of that age, at least in the NFL.
However, the real numbers often get lost in the increasing coverage so Samuel Bennett of Get Data broke down the figures and looked at how often players across all the sports, including NCAA college athletes, end up in trouble with the law.
Via Get Data
Surprisingly, it's the NBA that leads the arrest chart (as a percentage of the league) according to the data, which dates back to 2009.
Via Get Data
There are a number of theories about why this is, but once again Bennett has looked into the data and found a further study which showed that the "popular image of the African American National Basketball Association (NBA) player as rising from the 'ghetto' to international fame and fortune misleads academics and the public alike".
You can get more of a breakdown on the data and the trends behind it on Get Data.
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