Back in 2017, Tom Brady, Michael Strahan, Gotham Chopra, and Ameeth Sankaran launched a network titled Religion of Sports based on the fundamental idea that sport is a religion. Not like a religion, but a more powerful sect of worship than most traditional religions. Seriously, go check out the website for yourself.
When a friend told me about Religion of Sports several years ago, I thought it was a joke. I scoffed at the blasphemous idea of it all. It was a direct challenge to the supremacy of Christianity. Equating sports with a major world religion stings the Christian (and it should if we hold Christ supreme). But just because we don’t like it doesn’t make it an untrue part of our ever-changing culture.
Sports are a cultural staple. A further assessment of the Religion of Sports reveals that sports do have much in common with religions worldwide: faith, belief, seasonal celebrations (e.g., the World Cup, the Super Bowl, the World Series), hymns (i.e., fight songs), weekly…
