Is Sport Really Religion? Critical Assessments

Abstract

Some scholars argue, over the past four decades, broadly that sport constitutes religious activity or, more specifically, that specific sports qualify as religious activity. In this paper, I provide two critical discussions which question the “sport as religion” position. These counterarguments are not based in theological-insider considerations supposing that religion is qualitatively distinct or sui generis as a means of defending religion’s uniqueness; rather, I provide a postcolonial rebuttal followed by a feminist critique of the “sport as religion” claims. These arguments combined demonstrate the continued colonial and patriarchal legacies attached to a “sport as religion” claim. None of these counterarguments, in as much as I can find, have been engaged by scholars holding the “sport as religion” position. My overall goal relates more to continuing a deeper discussion of religion, sport, and the potential interactions, overlaps, and engagements of these cultural phenomena rather than fully dismissing the “sport as religion” argument. In the end, I invite further consideration of the included arguments from scholars interested in sport and religion discourse.

1. Introduction

Scholarship, since the middle of the twentieth century, spotlights the lived religious aspects of society. Thomas Luckman’s early directive recommending scholars be more attentive to “invisible religion” or religion outside of the confines of institutions, propelled researchers, especially sociologists, to think of the everyday rituals, practices, and experiences of individuals and collectives (Luckman 1967). Simultaneously, Robert Bellah’s identification of “civil religion” forced scholars to consider how commitments to the nation state displace or mirror religious devotion (Bellah 1967). Like Luckman’s emphasis, Bellah pointed outside of traditional forms of religious institutions to highlight religious devotions. Coupled with these theoretical directions, after Harry Edwards proposed sport equates to religion, scholars, overwhelmingly within the field of religious studies, began theoretically framing what I refer to as the “sport as religion” position (Edwards 2017; Shoemaker 2024). Edwards specifically focused on the context of the United States and argued, “For the American fan […] sport […] has achieved a stature not wholly unlike that enjoyed by traditional religions.” (Edwards 2017, p. 260). Taken together, some scholars take these ideas and either posit that a specific sport constitutes religion or that sport, more broadly, equates to religion. Importantly, these positions tend to look outside of institutions of religion (churches, mosques, temples, etc.) into sporting institutions (NFL, NCAA, FIFA, etc.) to find different types of religious devotion.

Although the “sport as religion” position pushes the bounds of scholarship in many positive ways, in the following, I provide two arguments for consideration against the position that sport constitutes religion or religious activity. I offer these arguments after reviewing literature on sport and religion, the foundational premises underlying many of these arguments, and a strong criticism on the continued reliance upon early religious studies theories. My objective is to problematize the “sport as religion” argument through postcolonial and feminist theory as well as critique the common usage of the earliest religious studies canon, specifically the Durkheimian “collective effervescence” application. Importantly, my approach is not a theological-insider defense of religion as a unique or sui generis aspect of human life. Instead, I seek to further academic discourse relative to sport as religious activity in the contemporary world. As far as I can tell, no religious studies scholar directly addresses these specific concerns creating a gap in scholarship as it comes to challenging the foundational presuppositions of the “sport as religion” position.

2. Literature Review

The literature analyzing the interaction and engagements of religion and sport phenomena demonstrates an increased attention in scholarship over the last few decades. The studies’ foci can be categorized into various approaches like religious expressions conducted in sporting spaces; sports being conscripted into religious spaces; competition between sporting and religious options; dialogue between religious leaders and athletes or coaches; and, the more controversial, sports constituting or equating to religion arguments (Shoemaker 2024). A quick review of each of these approaches shows a growing scholarly interest in combining sport and religion to elucidate elements of human society and experience.

The first two approaches demonstrate how sport and religious activity transgress secularizing boundaries. In short, religious expressions appear in sporting spaces and religious institutions sometimes utilize sport, problematizing the notion that there are clearly demarcated domains of life for human activities. In most of these accounts, historical, anthropological, and sociological approaches pinpoint where religious beliefs, behaviors, expressions, etc., seep into sporting arenas and venues (Alpert 2015; Alpert and Remillard 2019). Reversing this order, scholarship also studies the adaptive and integrative approach to sport by religious communities or organizations (Blazer 2015; Hoffman 2010). Many of these studies focus on Christian usage of sport to further Christian principles or numerical growth. Others investigate how sport and religion interact as separate domains. In these studies, critical analyses highlight how sport and religion either collaborate or compete depending on the circumstances. From the dialogical approach, athletes and religious leaders sometimes determine a mutually beneficial issue for collaboration. As one example, Pope Francis met with professional NBA basketball players to discuss racial amelioration in 2020. At the time, NBA players stepped up their response to police violence against people of color and their support of the Black Lives Matter movement (Shoemaker 2018). Opposite of this collaborative approach, others highlight how sporting institutions, race, and religion conflict (Scholes and Balmer 2023; D. Smith 2015). Still others focus on the sociological competition between sport and religion as it pertains to human options (Stolza and Usunier 2019). In this way, sport and religion constitute aspects of a marketplace of choices for human experiences. None of these works make the claim qualifying sport and religion as inherently the same; rather, sport and religion constitute two aspects of human experience encroaching on and intersecting with the other.

Pushing the conversation further, some scholars advocate that sport and religion are not as distinctive as many think. Instead, sport is religion (Price 2001; Bain-Selbo and Sapp 2016; Chidester 1996). Reducing sport to its constitutive parts, like what Ninian Smart did with religion, displays the similarities between sport and religion: fans align with religious devotees; sports attendance mirrors pilgrimages; superstitious beliefs of fans mimic curses and magic within religion; sporting legends equate to icons; etc. (Smart 1996). Furthermore, these assessments situate sport as a secular liturgical calendar, a form of regulated sacred violence, and a “do-it-yourself” version of religion (Price 2001; Bain-Selbo 2009; O’Connor 2020). Elsewhere, I refer to this as the “sport as religion” argument (Shoemaker 2024). These claims align somewhat with theological arguments that sports constitute a religious pathway for some participants; yet, these arguments also push further in proposing more expansively that sociologically, historically, psychologically, and anthropologically, sport operates as religious activity particularly in secularizing societies (Ellis 2014). Polish philosopher Damian Barnat succinctly summarizes the “sport as religion” position:

The analogy of sport and religion is determined by the fact that they have the same role: they give meaning to human life, they are an important determinant of individual and collective identity, they preserve and reproduce community values, their ritual aspect satisfies the need to transcend daily routine, etc.

(Barnat 2019, p. 29)

Multiple scholarly accounts follow this framework in arguing sport qualifies as religion.

These approaches to the study of religion and sport propel academic fields forward in wonderfully contributory ways. Together these studies push religious studies scholars and others outside of religious studies to consider what constitutes religion and how the secular might not fully explain activities failing to adhere to a religion/secular binary (Z. Smith 2025). In fact, in another paper, Eric Bain-Selbo and I argue that maybe more appropriately, scholarship should recognize a fused religio-secular reality in many Western countries rather than religious or secular distinctions (Bain-Selbo and Shoemaker 2016). Moreover, as quantitative studies repeatedly indicate, there are strong trends within the United States and Western European countries to disaffiliate and disassociate with traditional religious institutions and commitments. With trends of religious decline, the possibility that sport operates as a religious alternative propels academic discourse to consider broadly what types of human practices might qualify as religion or religious replacements. As a vital aspect of continuing to contribute to the broader discussions within religious studies, the sport as religion position needs fine tuning and subsequent responses to critiques leveled at the position. In the following section, I review some of the foundations of the sport as religion position to set up two subsequent critiques.

3. Foundations of the Sport as Religion Position

In the study of religion, the question of the sacred or what I have taken to calling the “extrasupervery”1 elements of human experience, interests, and belief remain central. Of primary interest are the metamorphosizing of the sacred aspects of human life that constitute something extraordinary, supernatural, and very meaningful (or the extrasupervery). For qualitative researchers, respondents often point to specific aspects of life as meeting or not meeting the extrasupervery category. Religion, religious, and spiritual often become a stand in for the sacred. Thus, if a respondent claims “skateboarding is my spirituality,” like one of my study interviewees did, then they are stating something to the effect of skateboarding is sacred or extrasupervery (Shoemaker 2023, p. 57). Likewise, a sports fan might claim that “football is my religion.” We can question if this qualifies as an actual religion in the same way that Buddhism or Islam constitute religions or if the fan merely means football is extrasupervery or even if religion stands in simply for a special aspect of life.

The sport as religion position claims that for many people sport is, in fact, religious devotion and activity. There are two nuanced logics that bear slight differences needing elucidation in these arguments. The first position is a functionalist claim: sport is religion because sport functions as religion for certain people. From this angle, dissecting the different functions of religion creates a comparison with the functions of sport. The commonalities often pointed out are collective and individual identity commitments, fandom pilgrimages, and emotional releases. Scholar Sean McCloud critiques these views as “parallelomania,” trying to find too many correspondences between disparate phenomena (McCloud 2003). From the functionalism perspective, however, religion and sport provide devotees with clear ingroup/outgroup identities, sacred sites to visit and pay homage to, and opportunities to express joy, anger, and mystery. For example, a 2019 qualitative study regarding trips to soccer stadiums concluded,

respondents sacralized pilgrimages indirectly by describing the sense of place and wonder that accompanied visits to stadia; the sensory, emotional, and visceral reactions that pilgrimages provoked; and the significant, memorable, and impactful impressions pilgrimages generated. Directly, pilgrims spoke about stadia and pilgrimages in overtly religious ways. Together these practices socially constructed pilgrimages as spiritual journeys to sacred places.

(Kassing and Nyaupane 2019, p. 176)

As noted, these scholars decide to make the move to identify the fans as pilgrims journeying to “sacred” places mirroring overt religious devotion. Admittedly, this summation is quite an oversimplification, but the functionalist approach states religion does X and, if similarly, sport does X, then religion and sport are functionally equivalent. From this standpoint, a person could be both traditionally religious and sporting religious although one could easily imagine these loyalties interfering at moments.

The second position relies more on a displacement theory. Sport qualifies as the new religion or religion 2.0 since secularization is occurring. From this position, some build upon the homo religiosus idea that supposes humans are inherently religious. If people are identifying as less traditionally religious and participating less with institutional forms of religious commitment, then what takes the place of religious devotion must qualify as the next iteration of religion (religion 2.0). For example, Roberta Newman argues, “In [the United States], where the secular is frequently imbued with religious significance, baseball, the national pastime, may be said to serve as the American religion.” Newman goes so far as to claim, “every Minor League stadium, every little league diamond, serves as somebody’s place of worship.” (Newman 2001). So, a sports fan might identify irreligiously as an atheist or agnostic, but they still, according to this perspective, have religious needs that need fulfilling. Thus, journeying to a sports stadium, partaking in tailgating, or wearing a team jersey qualify as religiosity even though the sports fan might not recognize it as such. In short, sport either functions like religion or is religion.

Many of the foundational claims arguing sport constitutes religion rely problematically and too heavily, in my view, on the earliest canon of religious studies scholarship. For example, Bain-Selbo and Sapp’s Understanding Sport as a Religious Phenomenon, which exemplifies the sports as religion position, structurally builds on Ninian Smart’s dimensions of religion and foundationally builds upon the works of the forefathers of religious studies like Mircea Eliade, Emile Durkheim, and Karl Marx. Early in the book, Bain-Selbo and Sapp set out their functionalist assumption that “human drives and needs that compel some to be a part of a particular religion are the same drives and needs that compel some to be a part of sport in some way.” (Bain-Selbo and Sapp 2016, p. 2). These scholars build upon other earlier works suggesting that sport is religious, civil religious, or secularly religious. Yet, as Rodney Stark argued, relying on the early canon of scholars, specifically Max Weber, Durkheim, and Marx, is akin to “ancestor worship” and ignores the many shortcomings and assumptions embedded in the early works hoping to define and theorize religion as a universal, cultural phenomena (Stark 2004). Within the lecture he delivered, Stark was careful to not completely propose that scholars ignore the early canon, but that scholars move on since “we know a great deal more about religion than Weber, Durkheim, or Marx ever did.” (Stark 2004, p. 474). The robust nature of scholarship over the last century provides a more thorough portrait of lived religion, religious institutions, and the power dynamics at play when analyzing religious expressions. Yet, most sport as religion scholars tend to neglect these contemporary theories and frameworks.

Although the purpose of this paper is not to fully deconstruct the usage of the early canon of religious studies forefathers, it is important to demonstrate how reliance upon the early canon can be problematic. Take for instance, Durkheim’s highly read and cited The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (Durkheim [1912] 1995). Ultimately, for Durkheim, religion serves as a foundation for social and moral ordering based on his armchair analysis of “primitive” societies. Durkheim divorces deities as absolutely necessary for religion, which might be why many scholars claiming sports as religion tend toward this framework, and, instead, centers social cohesion as the essence of religion. A key part of this social cohesion relies upon collective effervescence, wherein social gatherings:

generate an atmosphere of emotion and fervor. Their mutual stimulation yields a climate of emotional fusion. It culminates in a state of ‘effervescence,’ in which participants experience the ‘we’ in place of the ‘self.’ Their feeling of group belonging and their faith in collective representations being revitalized, participants can return to their individual occupations and face daily life with a sense of power and meaning.

(Rimé and Páez 2023, p. 1307)

Since Durkheim posits society as the central element of religious devotion, the conversion of the individual into the collective in moments of emotionally charged gatherings legitimates and affirms fraternity amongst members of a society. In short, Durkheim claims religion creates social cohesion through “the affective arousal of an assembled crowd [resulting in] the potential for both social conformity and group-based agency.” (Liebst 2019, p. 27). Collective effervescence, in a Durkheimian framework, points to religious activity because religion, ultimately, is society.

Many have sought to quantify and qualify what constitutes collective effervescence (Liebst 2019; Collins 2004; Pizarro et al. 2020). Scholarship indicates that collective effervescence might be found at music festivals, everyday activities, and political demonstrations, and the feelings and emotions associated with collective effervescence can be quite common (Kearney 2018; Gabriel et al. 2019). If we take this as true, then collective effervescence can be understood as a key part of social cohesion and can be found outside of religion or religious gatherings. It seems to me that Durkheim overstates religion’s role in being the singular glue for society. Obviously, there are other aspects of cultural practices that also form social coherence or at least a feeling of social connectivity. Collective effervescence then does not point to religion as much as it indicates moments when large numbers of people focus their attentions and energies to a singular cause like sporting events, civil remembrances, or other types of conventions. Or stated differently, collective effervescence is less an indicator of religion and more a mere aspect of social connectivity, quite possibly a civic rather than religious indicator. In fact, as Matthew Kearney argues, “we have yet to find an empirical basis for discriminating among possible causes of collective effervescence.” (Kearney 2018, p. 234). Durkheim theorized collective effervescence as an indicator of religion making religion the main category. However, taking newer scholarship into account, we might posit that collective effervescence is the primary category with several spatial subcategories where collective effervescence might occur. If collective effervescence equates to a human expression of connectivity and solidarity, then sports could be collective effervescence without being religion. The Durkheimian critique offered here demonstrates only one way in which early scholars could be re-read to understand human experience more broadly without having to classify disparate types of phenomena as religion.

As elegant as the claims associating religion and sport in the contemporary world might be, the sport as religion argument entrusts much of the theoretical foundations to the early canon of religious studies and engages less with current theoretical lenses. Two such important approaches are postcolonial and feminist theories. These theories expose the power dynamics at play when certain rituals, practices, or spaces are classified legally as religious while other human activities lack legal recognition (Wenger 2009; Rolnick 2022). Likewise, sports studies incorporate both feminist and post-colonial approaches to interrogate assumptions and historical epistemologies related to sport. Historian Samuel Clevenger asserts, “there are multiple points where postcolonial and feminist sport historiography, and their important contributions to studying relations between power and historical discourse, can engage in fruitful and productive conversations with decolonial thinking.” (Clevenger 2017, p. 594). Heeding Clevenger’s call to identify the contributions of post-colonial and feminist theories, the following two sections critique the sport as religion claim. The application of these two theories unfolds some major shortcomings in the sport as religious activity claims but also provides some potential paths forward in thinking about the sport as religion position.

4. Post-Colonial Rebuttal

The sport as religion argument can be quite convincing. These arguments do make general connections between what many people consider the extrasupervery. Most people know someone who is a sport fanatic, an extreme fan who is completely devoted to their teams, clubs, or games. A student of mine once shared with me photo evidence of a private room at their grandparents’ home, which was off-limits to visitors. This room contained several pieces of memorabilia associated with the New England Patriots. In the shared photo, there were jerseys from specific Patriots players framed and hanging on the walls, autographed footballs, and other trinkets carefully displayed around the small room. Even a small, wooden structure mirroring an altar rested at one end of the room. The student swore she peeked into the room and saw her grandmother praying one Sunday morning at that little altar for the Patriots to win their game. When examples like these are presented, there seems to be little reason to doubt that sports are religious or religious-like devotion for some fans.

However, there are some counterarguments against the sports as religion position that should be considered. First, “religion” as a category carries a long history of colonial projection typically ignored by those espousing the sport as religion argument. Scholars like Tomoko Massuzawa, Daniel Dubisson, and Talal Asad demonstrate effectively how colonial agendas influence and inform early investigations of religion and construct the categories of world religions today (Masuzawa 2005; Dubuisson 2019; Asad 2003). In brief, Western colonialists adopted a project to “discover” religion as they expanded their economic and territorial expansion agendas. The central tenet of this project involved bringing any newly “discovered” territories into submission with military conquest under the guise of Christianizing Indigenous peoples. Religion, specifically Christianity, served as a forced acculturation tool, which dictated who was Christian or pagan. In order to convert Indigenous peoples, colonizers found religious practices, rites, and beliefs that required erasure and replacement with Christian resources. Colonizers projected religion onto cultural practices, ceremonies, or rituals in societies and cultures that had no corresponding idea of religion. As Jonathan Z. Smith adeptly argues, “‘Religion’ is not a native category.” (J. Z. Smith 1998, pp. 269–84). A key agenda in identifying religion in colonial projects was to spread their religion, namely Christianity. If religion could be identified in what we now refer to as North and South America, Australia, and Africa, then that information could be utilized to convert Indigenous peoples to Christianity. Because colonizers desperately wanted to find religion, they incorrectly discovered “religion” in places where it simply did not exist or intentionally imposed religion as a means of classifying human value. This historical context compels some Indigenous peoples to have to legally adopt the religion category in order to continue cultural practices and other legal issues surrounding religion continue.

The religionization project corresponded with racializing projects. At times subversively and at other moments overtly, the Christianizing project was a means to subjugation and Europeanizing Indigenous peoples and people of color who were thought of as less evolved compared to their European counterparts. A growing number of scholars within religious studies triangulate religion and sport with race. Scholars Lori Martin, Jeffrey Scholes, and Darron T. Smith’s works begin to elucidate the interwoven nature of these three phenomena within specific case studies (Martin 2024; Scholes 2021; D. Smith 2015). Yet these scholars avoid the sport as religion framework and, instead, examine the intersectionality of race, religion, and sport. A key aspect of the attempt to Christianize was the inevitable religionization of the globe. Religion became a forced or adopted category in nations across the world. Humans became homo religiosus stamped with a colonial fervor for the project of converting souls. Research problematizes the category of religion and its application throughout history in various contexts.

Similarly, scholars from across the globe show how sport is often tied to Western, capitalist, and colonial agendas (Clevenger 2017; Agergaard et al. 2022; Oxford 2019). Like imposing religion as a category effectively demarcating the progressed or evolved Westerner in relation to the unevolved “Other,” sport carries with it historical attempts to “develop” Indigenous peoples, as well as, a space for agential power (Davies 2020; Eby 2021). Thus sport, like religion, historically constitutes an activity for both regulating and improvising within a colonial system.

Like the colonialist agenda to dominate and exploit cultures and their environmental resources, “discovering” religion in sports could be considered a continuation of the religionization project. Foundationally assuming that all humans contain religious needs requiring fulfillment might reify the colonialist error. No actual, hard evidence is determinative that universally humans are homo religiosus or that religion is sui generis. Since this is foundational for many of the sport as religion arguments, this foundation must be interrogated. Additionally, many theories applied to sports as religion tend to privilege Abrahamic traditions (i.e., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) as the standard bearer of what constitutes religion. For example, Bain-Selbo and Sapp end their introductory chapter building upon an Augustian notion that the souls of humans seek fulfillment through seeking the divine. They claim “that millions of fans fill that [Christian soul] hole with devotion to a sports team or a particular athlete such that they find their ultimate fulfillment in their team or athlete winning the championship indicates to us that sport can function as religion.” (Bain-Selbo and Sapp, 2016, p. 8). Or consider William Baker’s assessment: “team sports most vividly mirror the various delights and difficulties of the human experience. Like a church, a synagogue, or a mosque, an athletic team is more than the sum of its parts.” (Baker 2009, p. 241) The athletic team, according to Baker, is like Abrahamic places of worship, study, and prayer. Like these scholars, a majority of the earlier theorists were Europeans, and they used Abrahamic traditions as the model for religion and then prescribed universal aspects of religion to other cultural traditions. To state that a pilgrimage to a soccer stadium is a religious pilgrimage evokes Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land or Muslim Hajj pilgrimages. Similarly, proclaiming basketball as a ritual site for transcendence or baseball as a liturgical calendar works directly from Christian expressions. Most of the work from scholars arguing sports are religious operates from these theoretical frameworks tied to early Christian theorists. There is a chance that some sports are foundationally grounded in Christian expressions but not all sports mirror or correlate to Abrahamic notions.

If both religion and sport historically have been a means for colonizers to acculturate Indigenous peoples and people of color, then we explore the argument that neither sport or religion is sui generis but merely human inventions, which can be appropriated by those in power. Taking these critiques together, we could ask, is there an agenda behind arguing sports constitute the new religion? If religion is that which forces assimilation, reconstructs identities, and is a mechanism by which the nation state furthers its political agendas, does sport meet these parameters, making it religion 2.0? This leads to several inquiries that should be discussed further: Does the elevation of sports and religions as the most sacred aspects of human existence safeguard both religion and sport as essential aspects of the human experience? Who benefits from this theoretical elevation? By “discovering” sport as the new religion, what is the value in perpetuating religion’s categorical existence? Is the colonial error of “discovering” religion reified with the proclamation that sports are the new religion being detected by scholars today? What if we flipped the proposition? What if religions are the new sport? Does this devalue religion? If so, why? Does religion meet the parameters of sport (competition, a winner, rules of play, an ultimate prize, etc.)? A postcolonial critique should be taken very seriously in regard to power dynamics, perpetuating previous errors within scholarship, and how religion as a category stamps phenomena with past atrocities.

Additionally, the post-colonial framework allows scholars to critically question whether they tend toward caretaking of religion and sport in a way that allows less room to neutrally examine the benefits and negative aspects of these phenomena. Russell McCutcheon’s reflective call for scholars to maintain a critical position rather than that of a caretaker applies here (McCutcheon 2023). Certainly sport contributes much to societies globally; however, we must honestly examine what exists rather than tacitly prescribe a sacred quality to sport.

5. Feminist Critique

Using feminist theory, many scholars offer critiques and evaluations of modern sport. The mediated version of sport, which tends to decenter women, shows that women who are shown vis-à-vis sport are often hyper-sexualized (Cooky 2018; Burstyn 1999; Toffoletti 2017). Others offer an intersectional approach to understanding how gender and systemic racism further minoritize female athletes of color (Norwood 2019; Broch 2016; Simien et al. 2019). In sum, feminist theory provides a much-needed critical perspective on sport in contemporary society. Feminist scholar Varda Burstyn offers a direct critique of sport’s violence and how this often marginalizes female participants in both reality and the imaginary:

Many of the specific forms and actions of sport, and the idealizations of sport culture, are characterized by hypermasculinity and surplus aggressivity… and the competitive and violently instrumental masculine ‘role,’ and a relative deficiency of those associated with the possibilities of the female body and the cooperative, supporting feminine ‘role.’

(Burstyn 1999, p. 23)

Accordingly, the role of women within sporting spaces and the broader social imaginary typically remains devalued, secondary, or invisible. This is certainly interesting since many recognized religions tend to be male-dominated, but this also effectively marginalizes half of the human population.

The argument that sports are religion works from a universal application that tends to uncritically assume that all humans have access, equity, and inclusion to sporting spaces ignoring the gendered history and contemporary realities of sport participation. Consider the scholarly emphasis on “Muscular Christianity,” which shows the ways in which sport found favor for Christian men to counter the supposed feminization of industrialization and institutions of religion (Blazer 2012). Much of the “Muscular Christianity” scholarship tends to center white, male men who played sports as a means of cultivating manliness, but Paul Emory Putz shows how Black Christians also supported Muscular Christian ideas (Putz 2022). In short, the move to redefine masculinity in modern history implicates sport as a key mechanism through which manliness can be achieved, counterbalancing the purported feminization of religion and contemporary Western society. Moreover, Muscular Christian studies demonstrate the centrality of men in sport and religion within academic and popular discourse.

The gendered nature of religion and sport, however, needs to be brought to the forefront. From one angle, by gendered, I mean that most scholars arguing sports are religion identify as men and that most of their examples tend to center male-dominated sports. American football, international soccer, baseball, skateboarding, and basketball historically have been played more by men since societies restricted women and are often thought of as male ventures in the modern imagination (Plaza et al. 2017). There are certainly examples of women playing these sports, but the examples provided by most sports as religion proponents tend to ignore the participation of female athletes. Some studies certainly prioritize females who religiously identify and their participation in sports. For example, Annie Blazer’s study of evangelical collegiate athletes shows how sport participation can reorient political positions, and Jason Wollschleger’s study of female roller derby players shows the deep community developed on women’s teams (Blazer 2015; Wollschleger 2022). But, as far as I can find, there are no studies arguing that the WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association) or NWSL (National Women’s Soccer League), as two examples, constitute religious activity (Blodgett et al. 2017; Walseth 2013; Strandbu 2005). When women play sports and build a fan base, does this qualify as religious practice? Wollschleger clearly positions the roller derby participation as a “secular alternative” to religion. Are there cases of women’s sports constituting religious experience or activity? Or is it only when men play sports that a stamp of religion gets pronounced by scholars?

A feminist critique of the sport as religion argument is that those who make it tend to centralize violence and risk taking as religious activity and heroism, subjugating the role of women as supportive but non-participatory in the sports. In fact, the violence instantiated or circulating within sports is often a key part of the religious argument. Onaje Woodbine’s case study focuses on the trauma suffered in inner city life and how basketball creates a transcendent space to work through suffering (Woodbine 2016). Bain-Selbo utilizes the violence within American football as a key part of human and religious development. He argues, “football was saved not by eliminating violence but by compromising on an acceptable degree of physical danger. Violence in this case would be… a rite of passage designed to usher young men into the rough-and-tumble world of adulthood.” (Bain-Selbo 2009, p. 67). To be clear, not all examples are inherently violent or risky, but, more often than not, violence and physical risk are involved in the arguments.

Many of the sports as religions examples tend to assume that only male bodies can truly know transcendence, and risks are a key element of this knowledge. This might inadvertently hint at how historical religious expressions codified risky elements championed from male experiences (and how this has eventually evolved to correspond with dominant, modern values). Recognizing the male experiences recorded within religious texts illustrates the overwhelming attention given historically to these accounts versus their female counterparts. This forms a foundation for understanding how sport as a key element of culture historically and contemporarily sidelines women and those who identify as non-binary to continue male dominance in society. Varda Burstyn’s critique acknowledges this argument that sport undergirds a patriarchal power both visible and invisible in many Western countries: “the culture of sport has supported the greater power of men as a gender-class in the key economic, political, and military power apparatus of civil and state society.” (Burstyn 1999, p. 252). If scholars continue to center the male-dominated, violent aspects as exemplary of the religious qualities of sport, then they must also come to terms with the patriarchal minoritization of women within those spaces and the negative qualities of both sport and religion.

Like the colonial mistake in the previous section, we could question whether scholars today inadvertently continue a patriarchal social legacy by proclaiming sport as religious activity functionally or operationally. Or questioned more directly, is the sports as religion argument a continuation of the male-dominated project of religion hinging on colonial patriarchy seeking to discover “religious practices?” Significantly, one study found that the continued colonial gaze of patriarchy works to pronounce female participation in sport as a religious activity but for non-Christians in certain contexts. In her work on female Muslims who play soccer, researcher Katherine van den Bogert posits:

My own research, for example, shows that Muslim women on the football court are always seen by white bystanders as Muslim athletes, yet they themselves do not experience playing football as something religious and identify as a football player rather than as a Muslim on the field.

(van den Bogert 2024, p. 242)

Observers understand the female athletes as Muslims and thus conclude that their participation in playing soccer must be an Islamic practice. Elsewhere, van den Bogert poignantly asks, “but is sport always ‘religious’ when it is performed by Muslim bodies?” (van den Bogert 2021, p. 122). The need to “discover” religion still emerges in sporting spaces, and the long-standing intertwining of colonialism and patriarchy in religionizing practices continues to exist.

If we are to take seriously the argument that sport constitutes or functionally exists as religion or religious activity, then scholars must grapple with negative evaluation of religion and concede the potentially unfavorable, and possibly damaging, aspects of sport. The sports as religion position routinely glamorizes sport as fulfilling, displacing, or functionally operating as the qualitative good discovered in religion. Sport provides collective identity, pent-up energy release, ritual opportunities, and a way to transcend the banality of modern life—all favorable qualities. Yet, most are aware of the numerous instances of sports corruption, domestic abuse, illegal gambling, unethical behavior, homophobia, and capitalist exploitation that exists in sports today (Luther and Davidson 2020). One theory which could propel the sports as religion discussion further would be an in-depth discussion of Naomi Goldenberg’s argument that religion today operates in a vestigial state (Goldenberg 2020, pp. 41–47; 2021, pp. 7–25; 2022). By this Goldenberg seeks to focus on the ability of the state or state apparati to maintain “dominion over legalized violence.” (Goldenberg 2022, p. 74). In this way, religion operates in a microstate form with continued and permitted authority over certain aspects of violence. Goldenberg argues that in certain instances, “fully functioning states permit religions, i.e., vestigial states, to use violence.” (Bain-Selbo 2009, p. 67). Herein lies the critique of religion: religious institutions exist as a vestigial state exercising authority often over women and children in patriarchally operated spaces. Religious communities and institutions can inflict certain violence upon women and children sometimes with little repercussions from the state since this falls under legalized “religious freedom.” Thinking of sporting institutions as vestigial states or something of the sort could open up new avenues of thinking about the functional similarities with religion and religious institutions with negative contributions. Applying this theoretical framework centralizes violence, gender, capitalism, and state-sanctioned power dynamics in Western societies across the globe. We might discover that sport and religion are of family resemblance because they both do unrecognized work for the state in maintaining social norms, offering distractions from injustices, and inflicting damage on minoritized people.

From a more positive angle, some research directions could open pathways for understanding the role of women in the sport as religion framework. One future direction for research might examine the resemblances between sporting spaces offering agential opportunities for female athletes and where religion also permits agency to reconfigure patriarchal and social norms. Thinking of sport and religion as disruptive to social norms could advance new comparative avenues of exploration in the sport as religion framework. What are the histories of women strategically advocating for the right and freedom to play sport or obtain more status within a religious community? Are there sociological similarities in these types of developments? Admitting the patriarchal histories of religion and sport could also frame some women’s sports as new religious movements, where emerging criteria permit more agency for women circumventing institutional barriers. Where are the sporting and religious spaces designed by women for women? How, if at all, do the power dynamics differ in these spaces? How does ownership modify how women think of the experiences, programs, and newly forming institutions?

6. Conclusions

Sport and religion remain important global phenomena. As religious commitment and sporting fervor continue to inform and influence billions of people worldwide, scholars should remain steadfast in better understanding the multiple aspects of both phenomena. To be blatant, should we abandon our study of sport and religion, we would significantly reduce our knowledge and understanding of the human experience. Coupling the two phenomena together in studies brings into relief several shared commonalities, which illustrate how many people construct devotions, practices, and schedules. Sports fandom and religious fervor both tend to greatly influence how individuals and collectives see the world.

As scholars continue the work of elucidating the relationships, overlaps, and engagements of religion and sport expressions, some make the leap in arguing that these two phenomena are of the same substance. Or, more specifically, sport constitutes religion in the contemporary world. These arguments tend to utilize the argument to elevate sport to equal standing with religion. An argument that sports are religious certainly enhances the importance of sport—although I imagine many religious devotees might question this qualification on theological grounds. But the argument also reifies the notion that religion is exclusively unique amidst all the human cultural activities and expressions. From this perspective, religion is that which gets at the core of human essence and experience. This is an error from the earliest theorists of religion working from colonialist assumptions of the homo religiosus nature of humans. Taking the position that sport is religion requires foundational premises that essentialize all humans.

Likewise, by centering male experiences in sport and equating those with religion, the patriarchal elements of the sport as religion position begin to unfold. Like the colonial assumption that all humans contain souls that need salvation, traditional religious forms, at least how these traditions have been handed down, rely on the male experience as universal for all humans. The gender imbalance sidelines female and non-binary perspectives. Since many women have literally been marginalized in sport and religion throughout history, the universalizing of these two phenomena erases the voices of women and non-binary people who could offer different perspectives on this topic. Potentially, the minoritizing of women highlights the masculine-associated violence central to both religion and sport historically. Are religion and sport both means of regulating male aggression, inviting only a select few women into the experience? If so, then this needs further explanation. More theoretical research should be conducted to elucidate these arguments further as my contributions are merely the beginning of a much larger project that should be conducted.

Each of these counterarguments could be engaged, but they have yet to be. As theories develop and are applied to case studies, the case studies impress the need to tweak or modify the theory. The sport as religion argument seems to make sense on the surface. People’s fandoms demonstrate high levels of commitment and devotion. Fans journey to demarcated spaces to engage in intense practices. The rituals certainly appear religious. Admittedly, the sport as religion position continues to contribute much to the study of religion. The emergence of the sport as religion position coincided with a moment of deep reflection in religious studies about what constitutes religion, the historical formation of the category of religion, and movements to unearth lived religious activities outside of traditional religious institutions. The scholarly contributions to the field of religious studies through a combinative analysis of sport and religion still maintain value. Placing religion alongside other cultural phenomena compels scholars to hone key concepts and categories. Hence, I hesitate to suggest any abandonment of the sport as religion position.

Sport might provide some peak experiences; this is undeniable. But most people operate with an understanding that sport and religion are distinctive aspects of human life. Even when people use religious-like language that does not necessarily mean that they think of sport participation or fandom as religious—only that they need language to express how much they enjoy sport. And the need to identify elements or aspects of life as religious carries with it a long history of colonialism and gendered arguments that problematizes current attempts to categorize sport as religion. There exist other options for understanding the import of sport in relation to religion. Religiously adjacent, religious resemblance, and religious kinship all show the family resemblances of sport and religion without necessarily equating the two. These options expand the conceptual toolbox and theoretical frameworks of scholars studying a variety of cultural phenomena, and researchers will need to determine what conceptual framework provides the best explanatory strength for their projects. The shared characteristics of the sport and religion position communicate intensity without pronouncing sameness. From my research position, this course corrects (a) errors of thinking religion is sui generis, (b) assumptions all humans are homo religiosus, and (c) arguments that sport constitutes religion.