Essay On Sports Fandom

Sports fandom is something that has grown largely as time has passed. Almost everyone has a favorite sports team or at least support a local team. Because of this, it is becoming very common in our everyday lives and we are becoming surrounded by it. This is similar to how religion is. Some psychologists are starting to find sports fandom are very similar to religion. They are similar in the vocabulary that each uses, they have the same psychological effects on humans, and almost everything in religion has a counterpart in the sports world. Based off all these facts, sports fandom should be considered a religion. The first reason that sports fandom should be considered a religion is that the vocab for both is the same. “The similarities between sport fandom and organized religion are …show more content…
For example, the team a fan cheers for is similar to a person selecting their religious denomination. In religion, the people of a certain denomination believe that their beliefs are right and may disagree or go against another religion’s beliefs. This is like supporting a certain team and going against another in sports. Each religion has its own symbols and things of that sort. The people of that religion wear and show that symbol sometimes. For example, you may see a Christian wearing a crucifix or a Jewish person wearing David’s Star. In the sports world, you always see fans wearing clothing of some sort with their favorite teams color and logo. There are some religions that have rituals they always do. For example, Baptists have their ritual of baptizing. Every Baptist goes through it. Just like Baptists do their baptizing, sports fans have their own rituals. The most common example of that is fans doing the wave or maybe doing a chant. Another one is fans at home that may have chicken wings every game or pizza every game. They also may wear a “lucky” jersey, shirt, socks, or something else of that