I agree and I would tend to include owning pets in the category of a religion.

I say no. Religion is fake, sport is real. Because someone cares deeply for a subject or a person doesn't make it religion. If you love your wife or husband is that a religion? The article's initial premise that the same words are used in sport and religion: Faith, sacrifice, prayer etc. is just not true. You can pin those words on anything someone feels deeply about if you want to but that doesn't make it a religion.

"Football is not a matter of life or death. It's more important than that"
Bill Shankly - football manager

I'm a sports fan. When I lived in one place which had a tv I watched NFL football all the way through the Super Bowl. Lots of fun.
The next year no tv, so I didn't watch, but followed it online, watched some online sports shows. Still fun. Could care less about individual athletes, just enjoyed the chess match. It's like a serialized movie or tv show.
Nothing like a religion. See no similarity whatsoever. Silly comparison.

Absolutely. They are one in the same and members are just as fanatical as each other.

Unfortunately yes.

The article failed to point out the biggest similarities between sport and religion. In that it is tribal. The team you support is highly dependant on your family and location, does that sound familiar? In some cases, this will intertwine as in Glasgow or Northern Ireland, where sectarianism still runs rife. I suppose that it may be true in US sports too, I doubt that Notre Dame has many Presbertian fans?

Somewhere between religion and cult. Try telling someone that sports are an idiotic waste of time and money, the reaction is the exact same if you tell them religion is an idiotic waste of time and money.

Totally agree. You can't miss the game, you must wear icons of the team you worship and you need to loudly sing their theme song

Teams are tribes worshipped for their names!

They never have all the same players year after year, trade the players like chattel!

The fans know everything about the team(s) statistics and scores they worship, yet can not name thier senators or Representatives on the federal or local level!

Most still think we are still at war with North Vietnam or that we have more than one moon!
LOL!

The teams are own by overtly wealthy who treat their teams like religious corporations, charming Local authorities by paying little or no taxes for the publicly paid for and built massive stadiums, they occupy for almost free at our expense!

So are sports and religion one in the same two many similarities to be anything else!

If sport is a religion I’m a devout Baseballian. Rangerist is my denomination. ⚾️

Riots Weapons and Madness. Yup Sport IS a Religion.

The object of Religion is a passing to a "better afterlife"... Sport is not a Religion but... a Fanatic may think it is... and can turn it into a problem with Chaotic Fanatic Behavior.

For some are sports are their religion. They worship them to extremes

Damn...is there nothing that just can't be enjoyed without guilt or over-analyzation anymore? Lighten up people!

The way some treat Athletes/Sportspersons as IF they were Gods,etc, I'd say defintely YES.

From what I recollect, sports do not have any required beliefs or prohibited beliefs. I prefer to use rational thinking I'm going out on a limb here and say no.

You can say the same about anything. Music, movies, tv shows, comics, comedy, etc. You name it. Any hobby or something that someone enjoys doing is similar to millions of others doing it, and a lot of them seek these people out to have something in common with and fit in or fulfill a need of camaraderie etc. A lot of them congregate for these things at stadiums for concerts or comedians, comic con, movie theaters where people adore movie stars, theaters for Broadway musicals or plays, the opera, etc. The lottery! POLITICS!!!

The contention that sports fans are fairly religious is not some breakthrough point. Most of the world is religious. Most of America is religious. So of course most people that like sports are religious. It's a bogus correlation. Most people who commit crimes are religious. Most lefties are religious. Most people who have a nose are religious lol

When morality and common sense take a back seat to loyalty and fanaticism to the team, yes.
"In this town, God is Joe Paterno. But then Jesus would be Jerry [Sandusky]."

Sports is entertaining but if you are not going to be passionate about it then don't bother. That's fine too.

Kind of they do worship the heroes

I would say so. Obsessive sports fans scare me almost as much as religious fanatics.

I define a religion as any organization [yes it needs people] that goes through the process of reaching decisions and then making them as unchanging as possible because ' they ' [the elders,including mythical spirits] made them usually in the distant past. Their conclusion often change with time. Sport has a mechanism for changing rules by agreement with (almost) everyone, so this allows it to fall outside my definition . Sport is just a fantastic human activity. Get over it. One does not need a god to improve one's self.

Tribalism many do like sport's