Mike Bravener wishes he had thought to use his church sign to celebrate the Toronto Blue Jays’ World Series run.
Thankfully, someone else did.
On Oct. 21, hours after the Blue Jays dramatically defeated the Seattle Mariners in game seven of the American League Championship Series, Bravener drove up to Gibson Memorial United Church in Fredericton. There, he saw a church sign that summarized his mood perfectly: “Thank you God for your love and George Springer!”
“I was so happy,” Bravener, the church’s supply minister, said of his reaction to the sign.
The sign went viral after Jamie Campbell, host of Sportsnet’s Blue Jays Central, shared a photo of it on X. The post has since racked up more than 140,000 views.
The sign may seem trivial — just another example of a beleaguered fanbase relishing their team’s return to the championship series for the first time since back-to-back wins in 1992 and 1993.
But it also reflects deeper longings for community and transcendence — impulses sports lovers often share with the religious, sociologists say.
“Sports and religion, fundamentally, are about transcendence,” said Ellen Badone, a retired professor of religious studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont.
Like religious adherents who seek transcendence over life’s difficulties and ultimately death, sports offer their own form of life-and-death struggle.
“Games are an all-or-nothing thing,” said Badone. “The World Series is you either lose it, or you win. Winning sort of gives people this experience, even if it’s only transitory, of overcoming the limitations of mortality.”
Shared ecstasy
This year’s World Series has served up plenty of drama, from pinch hitter Addison Barger’s grand slam in game one to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ victory after 18 innings in game three.
For fans, sharing these joys and frustrations creates a bond that resembles the community organized religion often provides.
“[Sports can] create these ecstatic, emotional experiences whereby individuals really feel like they are part of something much greater than themselves,” said Joel Thiessen, a sociology professor at Ambrose University, a Chrisian university in Calgary, who teaches the sociology of sports.
“That only can happen when people are all together in a group context. You don’t experience that same thing on your own in the same way.”
In an increasingly lonely world, that connection is key.
“Sports is one of the greatest forces against individualization and against loneliness,” said Cody Musselman, a scholar of American religion who teaches at Harvard University.
“I think that’s one of the reasons that sports are perpetually popular [and], as social creatures, we value sport so much.”
‘Set aside from the usual’
Just as religious worship services have rituals and sacred objects, sporting events have their own rules of order and objects of devotion.
At baseball games, fans sing the national anthems and songs during the seventh-inning stretch, similar to how religious congregations sing together. Fans flock to arenas, stadiums and ballparks the way religious adherents gather at places of worship or pilgrims travel long distances to holy sites.
Sports memorabilia, like jerseys or game-used balls, are similar to religious relics, says Christopher Hrynkow, a professor of religion and culture at St. Thomas More College at the University of Saskatchewan. Both visibly show an individual’s devotion.
Displaying sports memorabilia is “very similar to putting up religious art in your house, or having a little shrine in your house,” he said.
Most importantly, fans devote their attention during games, much like the faithful do during worship services.
Games are “set aside from the usual, everyday life in the same way as a religious ritual is,” said Badone.
Sports fandom is most intense during games, particularly meaningful ones. Scholars say this resembles how a person’s religious fervour may increase during worship or other spiritual experiences.
At the same time, fairweather sports fans’ devotion to the game can also wax and wane, much like religious fervour.
“You’ve got folks who are deeply committed to their religious tradition and actively involved,” said Thiessen, who studies the rise of people with no religious affiliation. “But for a lot of people, [religion] is a peripheral thing, and [devotion] comes and goes in waves, in terms of how important religion is based on social context and life stage and life experiences.”
A dark side
But like religion, excessive devotion to sports can have a dark side, says Hrynkow.
People can become addicted to sports betting, losing thousands or even going bankrupt.
Other dangers are more subtle. Longtime fans of losing teams shell out money for tickets and merchandise, “just like cults make people empty their bank accounts,” said Hrynkow.
“People are sacrificing time and money to follow their sports teams or their sports heroes,” said Thiessen.
That adoration can actually harm athletes who become revered the better they play — especially if they win while hurt, he says.
“[It’s] viewing the human body as a machine,” he said, noting the pressure on athletes can put them at risk for mental health problems.
“If you can play through the pain, and importantly, if you can win, then you’re an extra-special human being,” said Thiessen.
In Fredericton, Gibson Memorial keeps serving up baseball-themed religious messages.
The church’s latest sign, put up after the Blue Jays tied the series at 2-2, encourages people to “Love thy neighbour! Even if they are Dodger fans.”
For Bravener’s part, he says baseball makes him grateful that, unlike athletes who have to earn championships, he does not have to earn God’s love.
He does not think God necessarily has a favourite baseball team. But he does think God likes to hear him pray. So he has been praying throughout the World Series — and says he’s hopeful about the Blue Jays’ chances.
“Anything can happen,” he said.
But along with his prayers, he wears a Blue Jays jersey during the games — he thinks it sends good vibes.
The sign Gibson Memorial put up before game three of the World Series says it all:
“Put your trust in the Lord and Vladdy Jr!”
