For millions of football fans, Sunday comes with its own set of rules. Most of that is harmless routine, but one Sunday night in Virginia turned into a very different story for one fan. A 64-year-old Virginia man named Terry Ward was reportedly arrested on Sunday night after his wife told police that she was restrained to a chair by her husband.

All because Ward wanted to watch football.

The claims come from a criminal complaint shared widely online, and Ward has been charged with a felony and a misdemeanor in connection with the incident. The story spread quickly among football fans after Football Forever posted it on Instagram.

“According to the criminal complaint, his wife said he used tape to restrain her to a chair in the basement. Ward admitted he tied her up and left her there. She had marks and tape residue on both arms and told police she had been restrained for up to 45 minutes. Ward faces felony abduction and misdemeanor assault on a family member and is due in court on November 10th.”

The felony charge is abduction. Under Virginia law, abduction is classified as a Class 5 felony unless a different penalty applies. The other charge, assault on a family member, is classified as a misdemeanor.

It is unclear what game Ward was trying to watch that night, and what eventually happened to the team he might have been rooting for. But Sunday night traditions are not to be messed with for some people, it looks like. Football Sundays are sacred for some.

NFL players themselves have weird superstitions they practice just in case. For example, Minnesota Vikings’ Harrison Smith used to have a shot of Tabasco before games.

The case has nonetheless reopened a question that researchers have studied for years, which is how a Sunday of football can intersect with violence at home.

What does research say about football and domestic violence?

Economists David Card and Gordon Dahl examined that question in a study published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2011. Using police reports against 866 regular-season Sunday NFL games, they arrived at an alarming reality. They found that when a home team favored by four or more points lost, the rate of at-home violence by men against their wives and girlfriends rose by 10%.

Dahl pointed to the element of surprise as the driver of that finding, rather than the result itself:

“The main thing we found is that when you lose unexpectedly, domestic violence spikes. From this, we deduced that how a person reacts may be related to what they expect the outcome to be.”

The same study found that losses when the game was expected to be close had insignificant effects. 

“If it’s an important game, the spike is even larger,” Dahl said. “If playing against a traditional rival, or if the team is still in playoff contention, the spike could be as large as 20 percent.”

Ward’s scheduled court appearance is the next public step in a case that so far rests only on the complaint. No plea, statement from Ward, or comment from an attorney has been reported.