Whipping up panic about sex trafficking at the Super Bowl has become as durable a tradition as nachos, Budweiser ads and a milquetoast halftime show.

Every year, anti-trafficking organizations and law enforcement officials pitch news outlets the same story: The annual event causes a huge influx of sports fans to the host city, which invites a huge influx in sex workers, which results in a huge spike in human trafficking.

These claims are inevitably accompanied by large-scale publicity campaigns and police crackdowns . This year, in preparation for Super Bowl LV, Tampa authorities have spent the last month putting up billboards (Dont buy it, Tampa Bay), ticketing strip clubs and organizing prostitution stings .

We know from past experience with major sporting events there will be some who travel for the exclusive purpose of taking advantage of women and children, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said after a Jan. 11 vice roundup that netted 71 arrests.

This narrative sounds convincing, a reasonable response to a widespread, severe and growing societal scourge.

Theres just one problem: Its a lie.

A Solution In Search Of A Problem

There has never been any evidence that major sporting events are associated with a rise in human trafficking. Studies of Germany and South Africa failed to find any link between the World Cup and an increase in trafficking. An analysis of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver found that the market for sex work actually shrank during the sporting event mostly due to increased police presence and extra traffic.

The Super Bowl is no different. Despite waves of ominous warnings every year, no city has demonstrated a rise in human trafficking before or after the big game. Arrest records following the 2017 Super Bowl in Houston turned up low-level busts for prostitution and driving under the influence. An FBI raid in Atlanta timed to coincide with the 2019 Super Bowl turned out to be a standard-issue vice roundup of sex workers.

This isnt even the first time the myth has appeared in Tampa. Last time the city hosted the Super Bowl in 2009, police spokesperson Andrea Davis told reporters afterward that the department didnt see a huge influx in prostitutes coming into Tampa. The arrests were not a lot higher. They were almost the same.

Theres not any more trafficking; there are just more arrests, said Blair Hopkins, the deputy director of the Sex Workers Outreach Project Behind Bars, a nonprofit organization that provides assistance to currently and formerly incarcerated sex workers. For the past month, Hopkins and her colleagues have been bailing out sex workers caught up in pre-Super Bowl stings. The organization has also released a list of policy proposals for safeguarding sex workers and is trying to put the sports-and-trafficking myth to rest.

None of the women were working with even knew it was the Super Bowl this weekend, she said.