Religions have often been compared to football teams in both pejorative and positive ways. In this article, Professor Tracy J. Trothen moves beyond the question of whether religious followers should be compared to sports fans, and analyses the role of faith, hope, and spirituality within both.

We need hope. War in Ukraine, a pandemic that shows little sign of ending anytime soon, and climate change, can make it very hard to feel hopeful. One of the few places we can feel uplifted or, at least, have a brief reprieve from these grave threats, is sport. Is it really only an escape that sport offers? Or might it be that sport offers something more. There can be value in entertainment, socialising, and escape, but for others, sport can have a spiritual function; sport can inspire hope.

Sport doesn’t need to be a religion to give followers a spiritual experience. Sport may function similarly to a religion for some followers, 1 or it may not. 2

Some are concerned that sport poses an idolatrous threat to religion, becoming an idol that takes precedence over the truly holy. But far from threatening religion, it may be that sport can extend and further actualise some of the spiritual qualities that are experienced in the best of religion, including hope for social justice, healthy relationship, and fulfilling or exceeding one’s potential. Many people—athletes and fans—experience something in sport that inspires them, lifts them up, gives them a sense of belonging and meaning. Or it simply ignites their passions. And gives them hope.

In books that I have written about the intersection of sport, religion, and spirituality, I identify five locations of hope in sport, which I very briefly summarise as: winning and losing, star athletes or “my” team, perfect moments, relational connection, and flow states. 3

We hope that our team wins. Many of us never give up on this hope. I should know, being a die-hard Toronto Maple Leafs fan. I love hockey and I have loved many iterations of the Leafs but I have yet to witness “us” winning a Stanley Cup. Several Olympic hockey golds for Canada’s women’s teams have sustained me, but even without these wins, I know I would still be a Leafs fan. And that is the resilient aspect of hope in sport. As powerful as a championship win feels, the hope that returns after a bone-numbing loss can be even more fierce. Because, literally and metaphorically, there is always the next season.

Many of us can name certain teams and star athletes who inspire us. We buy their jerseys, brag about their accomplishments, know their stats. We can also name certain star athletes who have let us down—sometimes very badly. Psychologist Kenneth I. Pargament and his colleagues have researched how and where people experience spirituality. He defines spirituality as the search for the sacred, finding that people discover the sacred in many things including religions, the transcendent, relationships, music, gardening, and, yes, sport. Pargament identifies six implications of finding the sacred for our everyday lives:

“First, people invest their resources in sport. Second, experiences of sport often ‘act like an emotional generator,’ stimulating feelings of awe, elevation, love, hope, and gratitude. Third, ‘people derive more support, strength, and satisfaction’ from time they spend on sport. Fourth, sport is an ‘organizing force’ in the lives of many fans and athletes. 4 Fifth, people protect and preserve the sacred. And sixth, ‘people react strongly to loss or violation of the sacred.’ 5 This sixth implication helps us to understand the effects of ignoring internal goods for the sake of winning.” 6

Not only do we invest time and other resources in that which is sacred to us, but we react strongly to the loss or violation of the sacred. Beyond psychological explanations, this finding may go a long way to explain why some of us have felt torn up by news that our favourite star athlete has cheated or behaved in other morally deplorable ways. Our sports heroes and heroines are sources of hope for us.

Perfect moments in sport can lift us up in awe and amazement. Athletes such as gymnast Simone Biles inspire us through not only stellar, “perfect” sports moments, but through the insight that the best athletes are human just like you and I, and still somehow manage to do the impossible. Biles’ courage to step back from the 2021 Olympic Games and prioritise her mental health, despite (and because of) the pressure and expectation to be the very best gymnast in the world, gave many people hope that as imperfect humans who struggle we can still have shining moments. The insight that star athletes are real people “just like us” can give us hope that we too can shine, blending the immanent and the transcendent.

Hope in sport may be most powerfully experienced in the uniting and empowering of communities. Nelson Mandela promoted hope and healing through the Invictus World Cup rugby games in 1995, hosted by South Africa. The severe racial divide between Blacks and whites was mitigated by so many joining together to pull for the win. Sport can not only help to unite us inter-relationally but can also help us unite ourselves intra-relationally by reminding us of our embodiment and interwoven nature of our whole beings. Too often, perhaps especially for those of us with sedentary jobs, embodiment can seem more like a hindrance (or an unreality) than a valued dimension of being.

Lastly, flow states can make the impossible possible and can fill the person experiencing this state with a powerful sense of the interconnection of all life. Flow states are those moments in which time seems to change, we feel able to do almost anything, we are working harder than ever but everything seems effortless, and our ego is released as we experience the organic and connected nature of life. And almost as soon as we become conscious that we are in the “zone,” flow states can evaporate. The unpredictability and mysteriousness of these powerful moments can almost feel like another dimension, potentially assuring us that the transcendent is real and right here.

Sport offers the potential for hope, including the spiritual quality of transcendence. As I recently wrote in a chapter in Training the Body—Perspectives from Sport, Physical Culture and Religion (eds. David Torevell, Clive Palmer and Paul Rowan, 2022).

“If philosophers such as Charles Taylor, Herbert Dreyfuss and Sean D. Kelly are correct in their claim that the loss of the transcendent is at the root of ‘the modern malaise’ … then the experience of transcendence in sport should be considered when considering corporeal tech … I agree with [ethicist Shannon] Vallor that ‘[t]he unresolved crisis of the 20th century, still with us in the 21st, is a crisis of meaning—the meaning of human excellence, of flourishing, of the good life’… Hope, transcendence, ultimacy, boundlessness, a sense of connection, and spiritual emotions can add to a sense of wholeness or flourishing.” 7

Sport’s spiritual dimension can give us transformative hope if we pause long enough to notice it. And value it.

At the end of the day, religion is not where all faithful followers experience spirituality. Nor is sport where all followers experience spirituality. But some do find transcendence and hope in religion. And some do find transcendence and hope in sport.

1 For example, see the excellent textbook: E. Bain-Selbo and D. Gregory Sapp, Understanding Sport as a Religious Phenomenon: An Introduction (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2016).
2 For example, see the arguments made by R. J. Higgs and M.C. Braswell, An Unholy Alliance: The sacred and modern sports (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004).
3 T. J. Trothen, Winning the Race? Religion, hope, and reshaping the sport enhancement debate (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2015), and T. J. Trothen. Spirituality, Sport, and Doping: More than just a game (Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2018).
4 K. I. Pargament, “Searching for the Sacred: Toward a non-reductionist theory of spirituality,” in K.I. Pargament, J.J. Exline and J. Jones (Eds.), APA handbooks in psychology, religion, and spirituality: Vol. 1 Context, theory, and research, pp. 257-274 (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2013), 261-262.
5 K. I. Pargament, D. Oman, J. Pomerleau and A. Mahoney, “Some Contributions of a Psychological Approach to the Study of the Sacred.” Religion (2017, 47/4): 734.
6 T. J. Trothen, “Corporeal Enhancement and Sports’ Spiritual Dimension: A Virtue Ethics Proposal,” in Training The Body: Perspectives from Religion, Physical Culture and Sport, edited by David Torevell, Clive Palmer and Paul Rowan. London: Routledge, 2022: 64-65.
7 Shannon Vallor, Technology and the Virtues: a philosophical guide to a future worth wanting (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 247.

Photo by Martin Reisch on Unsplash