Arguably, football doesn’t need anything extra to satisfy its collective sense of self-importance, but the idea that it can create new life certainly does that.
You may remember a rather dramatic National League game at the end of last season when Wrexham and Notts County met in what was effectively a ‘winners promotion’ clash. In the 97th minute, Wrexham goalkeeper Ben Foster saved a penalty kick to seal the victory 3-2, leading the opponent by 3 points with a game in hand.
Foster says the results of that moment of collective ecstasy have become clear nine months later: he recently recorded a video in which he claimed the birth rate at Wrexham Mailer Hospital was higher than in January 2024. Birth rates at other hospitals rose by 24%. a year ago.
Ryan Reynolds, a partner in Wrexham and father-of-four, posted the video on Twitter, adding: “Normally this is what happens when you pull a keeper situation, not the other way around. Trust me.”
Usually, this happens when you pull the keeper, not the other way around. Believe me. pic.twitter.com/fIT0SoVFTY
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) February 14, 2024
It’s an exciting theory that pops up from time to time, that there’s a clear correlation between a team’s moments of success and a mini-baby boom. Perhaps the most famous in football is the “Iniesta generation”: the story is that the Barcelona midfielder’s last-minute winner against Chelsea in the 2009 Champions League semi-finals inspired many intimate moments, So much so that nine months later, Iniesta Catalonia was flooded in the delivery room.
“There’s going to be a lot of love tonight,” Gerard Pique said after his goal. Preliminary reports showed that the birth rate rose by 45% the following January. In 2020, Iniesta made a surprise video call to several children who were supposedly celebrating, asking the mother of one of them if she had shown him a video of the goal. This is a little weird: Have you ever wondered what made your parents willing to accept your pregnancy?
There are many similar reports. In 2004, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series, their first victory in 86 years, apparently sparking a mini-baby boom. A similar story happened in New Zealand after the 2011 Rugby World Cup. There’s also a long-standing theory that birth rates rise in the cities of teams that win the Super Bowl, encouraged by an ad produced by the NFL in 2016 that cited sources such as “data” to prove the theory. .
But is this true? Could success in sports double as an aphrodisiac, causing population growth?
The short answer to this question is…no. Or at least… probably not.
Let’s start with the Foster-Wrexham example: First, it’s a little difficult to determine the accuracy of the numbers Foster cited.It is attributed to the Mellor Hospital, but Competitor The NHS health board, which runs the hospital, was contacted and reported that there was nothing unusual about birth rates in January compared with recent months or even with the same period last year. The health board, which includes other hospitals in addition to Maelor, said birth rates in the region were up in January 2024 compared with a year earlier, but only by 1.5 per cent.
Forster’s representatives were unable to do anything and neither could Wrexham. The origin of Foster’s video may raise more eyebrows: It’s part of a Valentine’s Day promotion with one of his sponsors, promoting a series of products tied to the baby announcement. The company also could not clarify the source of the statistics.
But hey, an over-the-top business stunt doesn’t necessarily disprove this theory. What about the Iniesta generation?
First of all, the 45% figure is meaningless and is the result of a statement from a spokesman for the Quiron hospital in Barcelona, which said that the number of births increased from 9 or 10 to 14 or 15 per day. This is the type of sample size that would leave most statisticians scrambling.
Still, a broader, more scientific study published in the British Medical Journal in 2013 did show an increase. The study examined birth rates over a 60-month period from 2007 to 2011 in two counties in central Catalonia – Solsonnes and Bagès.
The study reads: “Our results show that in February 2010, nine months after FC Barcelona’s exciting victory in May 2009, there was a brief and significant increase in birth rates of 16%, well below the The media reports a 45% increase. We can infer that, at least among the target population, the high levels of excitement following a victory can foster hedonic feelings, leading to intimate celebrations, the consequences of which may be unexpected births.”
Forster made crucial saves last year (Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
If at this stage you need to take a moment to calm down because you’ve been overcome by this playful language, then please do so.
The problem is that there’s no real way to prove a clear link, other than tracking down everyone who gave birth in these areas in February 2010 and asking if it was Iniesta’s goal that got them so excited. Even the report’s authors are divided on this point, admitting their own loyalties may have influenced their conclusions.
The report states that “some authors (who happen to be supporters of Barca) believe that a strong and short-lived stimulus (Barcelona’s victory in May 2009) is responsible for the increase in the number of births. The remaining authors (who, by the way, are not supporters of Barça) author) explained that the term “Iniesta generation” is a misnomer.” Huge club bias…it’s even caught the attention of academic researchers.
What about a World Cup victory? If this theory were correct, wouldn’t they have sparked a nationwide sex drive and subsequent blockage of maternity wards everywhere? Maybe. Looking at birth rates after Spain won the 2010 World Cup in South Africa does suggest that something may be going on. In March 2011, nine months after Iniesta’s extra-time win for Spain, there were 40,036 births, compared with 38,621 in January and 36,694 in February, according to the National Institute of Statistics. , 37,528 in April and 39,462 in May.
Iniesta 2010 #world cup The final goal changed Spanish football forever! 🇪🇸👏🏆
📺https://t.co/ezhfwgVNdI pic.twitter.com/DMSzUDF6iZ
— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) May 8, 2018
Aha! Then it will definitely increase. But looking at data from previous years, there were 41,830 births in March 2009 and 40,462 births in March 2010. ah. Well, not so much.
In addition, researchers from the German Institute of Labor Economics conducted a study in 2021 that investigated the monthly birth rates in 50 countries since 1965 and related them to the World Cup and European Championships. It was found that the birth rate increased in 9 It dropped after a month. Those tournaments, didn’t get up.
“The authors suggest that one possible explanation is that the substantial increase in media and entertainment consumption, and the accompanying widespread celebration with friends and fellow citizens, has come at the expense of ‘intimate time,'” the report said.
There seems to be a lot of research into this phenomenon in academia. One, written by Fabrizio Bernardi and Marco Cozzani for the Journal of European Population, delves into the relationship between birth data and betting odds in Spain from 2001 to 2015 to observe the “emotional impact” of the results. They found little to no correlation, but the study is worth reading, if only for the subtitle “Celebrating intercourse versus sad abstention.”
The Super Bowl theory was mentioned earlier, but as it turns out, that might also be nonsense. Another study, conducted by University of North Carolina academics, found that birth rates in Super Bowl winning cities were essentially unchanged nine months after the game.
The report found that in the few cases where there was change, as with studies related to the World Cup and European Championships, the change was reduced rather than increased.
None of this is particularly surprising to Josh Wilde, a fertility researcher at the Liverhulme Center for Population Sciences at the University of Oxford.
When asked what kind of things tend to cause birth rates to spike, he said: “There’s never really one thing you can point to, a huge euphoric effect.” He noted that a single identifiable event, such as Covid-19 or a country of financial problems) are more likely to lag behind declines than growth. “By far the biggest predictor of short-term changes in birth rates is the unemployment rate.”
Wilde explains that you can always find examples of rising birth rates that can then be traced back to some sort of sporting victory. But firstly, these tend to be carefully chosen and highlighted, perhaps to sell a product or create a catchy headline, and secondly, it’s basically impossible to prove whether they are related to sports victory.
“Can they?” he said when asked whether sporting events could cause birth rates to spike. “Well, anything is possible. But are they? No.
“Another thing you have to consider is that unplanned births happen, but they are becoming more and more rare. If you have a couple who have sex once a week, and then they decide to have sex twice a week, their The number of children is not doubled because they are taking birth control or arranging their lives in a certain way to prevent these births.
“If you were one of those pairs and you suddenly felt happy because your team was winning, that might lead to some unintended births, but not enough to be detectable at a population level.”
Wilde also pointed out that this is not usually the way people express their joy when their team wins an important game. Typically, people might go out drinking or drive through the streets, honking their car horns and wrapping scarves around their heads to celebrate, but probably not going to the bedroom.
You can argue this in the comments, but you can imagine how few fans go home with a bottle of champagne in their hands and a rose in their mouth, declaring to their loved ones: “Dear: Victory! Follow Let me go upstairs!” If for no other reason, this is a relatively distasteful thought: If the reason your partner wants to be intimate is because their passion is sparked not by you but by a sporting event, you might It won’t feel good.
Wilde said: “Think about people who don’t use contraception and are prone to unintended childbirth: how many of them would be so happy about a World Cup win that they would even be in that situation? Even in a situation where that could happen? It’s only a small percentage of people, so if you get some claim that the birth rate has increased by 40%, that’s laughably unbelievable.
“Would you find select examples online of birth rates rising nine months after a sporting event? You would. Is this something systemic that happens in the real world? No.”
So there we have it. We have a solemn duty to report to Ben Foster who, alas, is almost certainly responsible for a large number of births in the Wrexham area. It seems football – or any sport, really – can take no credit for the rise of new life.
Ultimately, that might be for the best.
(Main image: Getty Images, design by Dan Goldfarb)
