In recent sports violence has come to be perceived as a social problem. newspapers, magazines, and television programs portray bloodied athletes and fiorous fans at hocking, boxing, football, soccer, baseball and basketball games with what apperars to be incresing regularity. What they report rivals in magnitude any sports related violence one might encounter today. Even though there is greater focus on sports violence in the massmedia, this attention and media focus on sports violence an increse in the incidence of actual violence. It is possible , and I think reaonable, to assume that the heightened public attention and media focus on sports violence reflect not an increse in the incidence or severity of aggression. but great concern with the issue. Contrary to popular belief, there appears tube growing dissatisfaction with sports violence. Some athletes have refused to partivipate in brawls, management has grown less tolerant of violence because incresingly great sums of mony stand to be lost it key players are injured, and there are now fan organization Such as fans, that have openly opposed sports violence. Among management, athletes, and fans there is ans ambivalent attitude toward sports violence. The ambivalence takes the form of justifying the existence of violence in sports. but not taking personal responsibility for it. Coaches and managers tend to blame fans. saying that it is violence that attracts them to the game in the first palce. The fact is that we do know whether the incidence, prevalence, or severity of sports violence is incresing, decresing, or remainning constant. In a domain where wtatistics of every imaginable sort are kept with fervor, no record of violence in sprots is maintained. It would certainly be a simple matter for a team of league statistician to note violent incidents, their severity. the individuals involved. when in the course of the game they occur, and so on . Such records would allow us not only to chart the course of sports violence. but to begin to understand it sufficiently to constrol or prevent it.