Last week, when I was home for the weekend, I was able to go to my brother's high school football game. As most athletic teams do in the month of October, Warhill High School acknowledges breast cancer awareness month by having their athletes wear pink uniforms all month. The football team takes the easy way out by having players wear hot pink socks for every October game.
During the national anthem, I looked down the line of WHS football players. Pink socks, pink socks, pink socks—all the way down the line, until suddenly the uniform pink was broken by a pair of plain black socks. Horrified, I kept looking down the line, thinking that maybe wearing the pink socks was optional. No, every single other person on the home side of the field, coaches included, was rocking pink socks. My eyes went back to the black sock culprit. Imagine my horror and shame when I realized that the uniform defector was none other than my own, pink-hating little brother, Jack Schulz.
Jack gave me a classic example of freeriding to write about for this blog post. In this case, the public good is supporting breast cancer awareness in the month of October. The contributors (the team members) make their payments (wearing the pink socks) in order to have the public good exist. Since his 50+ member team was showing support for breast cancer awareness by wearing the pink socks, the cost of Jack opting out of wearing the pink socks was very small. The public good still existed without his contribution. However, had Jack been part of a doubles tennis team supporting breast cancer awareness instead of a football team, the cost of Jack not wearing the pink socks would have been much higher. The fewer members of the team would make the lack of uniformity would be more noticeable, making the support of breast cancer awareness unclear and keeping the public good from existing. As n increases, the incentive to freeride increases.
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