Sports as a religion

We recently had to read "Tuesdays with Morrie" in our Death and Dying class.  In this book, the narrator, Mitch, recalls an assignment he is given by his teacher.  The assignment is a senior final thesis.  The topic of this thesis was something along the lines of "Is sports a religion for some people".  Today, as I sit in my basement watching the football playoffs, I began wondering if this is true.  There are people out there that will devote their entire lives to sports.  They will spend their entire life savings to attend sports games.  They live for sports.  Personally, I love sports.  I would much rather attend a professional sports game than do just about anything else.  I enjoy playing sports as well, but that does not mean that I will spend my entire life savings or devote my entire life to a specific team or sport.  My friend Ian devotes his entire Sunday to watching football, and during the offseason for football he moves onto another sport.  I would honestly say that he may be obsessed with sports.  But there are people that go past that.  There was a fan of the New York Jets.  His name is Ed Anzalone.  Every game for years, Ed Anzalone (better known as Fireman Ed) would attend Jets games in a New York Jets fire fighter hat.  He would inspire other fans and lead the stadium with the "J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets" chant.  Ed is an ex NYFD firefighter that was injured on the job and receives monthly checks from the government.  He spends those checks to attend Jets games.  He is literally spending almost everything he has to attend the games.  You could easily make an argument that sports is a religion for him.  It does not just stop at him.  There are thousands of fans who attend every game of sports, their lives revolve around their favorite sports team.  Also some fans idolize certain athletes.  We purchase jerseys of players, we cheer when they do something great, we boo them when they screw up.  Those athletes serve as demi-gods to some people.  We view the athletes as perfect, they can do no wrong on the field.  We, as a society, view sports as a way to escape from our everyday lives.  Some of us follow sports religiously, while others hardly follow them at all.  But for the people who follow sports regularly, they most certainly have a profound impact on our lives.