SeekingArrangement, a site that facilitates the matching of attractive young "sugar babies" with richer "sugar daddies," recently released a study claiming that Austin, Texas, is the "sugar daddy capital" of North America.
"All of our women are absolutely gorgeous and looking for a special sugar daddy just like you," according to the company's Austin site. "The average sugar baby is a beautiful, ambitious college student, aspiring actress or model, or single mom."
Supposedly, there are 23 sugar daddies actively seeking sugar babies for every 1,000 adult males in Austin. The Big Crunch finds this figure suspiciously high—and frankly, we would be very surprised if it was accurate given the city's demographic realities.
There are about 400,000 adult males in the city, according to the latest Census data, so if SeekingArrangement's numbers are right, there are more than 9,000 sugar daddies living in Austin (a calculation the company confirmed).
Already, that number means that one in every 50 men you see is a sugar daddy, but it becomes even more outlandish if you consider the income necessary to maintain a sugar baby.
The claim is hard to believe, especially considering that Austin reportedly came in 10th place in the list of top sugar daddy cities in last year's report. At the time, there were only about eight sugar daddies per 1,000 men (sugar baby signup at the University of Texas at Austin has also boomed, according to past company data releases).
According to the study, the average sugar daddy spends more than $51,000 a year on his sugar babies and has a net worth of $5.2 million. Net worth doesn't necessarily tell us much, especially considering that for high net-worth households, 30 to 60 percent of assets tend to be tied up in homes. Most people are unlikely to hand those off to a sugar baby as monthly payments.
So it's income we really want, and the average sugar daddy makes about $254,000 a year, according to SeekingArrangement.
Distribution data shared by SeekingArrangement with the Big Crunch shows a much lower median income, but it's still more than double the median income in Austin. It begs the question of who could possibly be seeking all that sugar?