Half of American Fans See Supernatural Forces at Play in Sports
Will praying and wearing dirty underwear help your team win the big game?
According to a new survey released by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), fans have plenty of faith when it comes to sports.
Just ahead of the 2014 Super Bowl, half of sports fans see some aspect of the supernatural at play in sports, meaning they either pray to God to help their team, have thought their team was cursed at some point in time, or believe that God plays a role in determining the outcome of sporting events.
The survey showed football fans are a highly spiritual bunch. Of the 1,011 surveyed, 55 percent of football fans said they believe in some type of supernatural forces at play in sports. Another 33 percent pray for God to help their team. One-fourth of football fans perform a pre-game or game-time ritual and 31 percent believe their team has been cursed.
Midwest fans are substantially more likely than fans living in other regions to report that their team has been cursed. One-third of fans living in the Midwest say their team has been cursed, compared to 27% of fans living in the West, 22% of fans in the South, and 20% of fans in the Northeast.
There are few differences by religious affiliation. More than 1-in-5 white evangelical Protestant fans (22%), minority Protestant (22%) fans, religiously unaffiliated fans (25%), Catholic sports fans (27%), and white mainline Protestant fans (30%) believe their team has been cursed.
Overall, about one-fifth of sports fans said they perform a ritual before or during games of their favorite teams. The majority of those fans, 66 percent, said the rituals involved wearing jerseys or clothing with team colors. One fan responded to a survey question on rituals by saying he or she wears “a dirty pair of underwear … over my pants and then I put my jersey on.” About a quarter of respondents said their rituals involve a physical activity, such as dancing in a circle, sitting in the same seat for each game or giving a “pep talk” to the television.