ABSTRACT
With limited time and resources, people often must make choices on whether to be involved with religious or sporting activities. This leads to a direct competition in the cultural marketplace of options. This chapter examines this competition, explaining the cultural marketplace and religious marketplace theory while also providing the reader with two research samples to consider. To start with, the chapter summarizes a study conducted by the author to examine whether skateboarding is a spiritual activity from the perspective of skateboarders. This emic, qualitative approach highlights how a sporting activity like skateboarding might be recognized by those who skate as more than a form of play. Afterward, a quantitative study conducted with pickleball players denotes the challenges in balancing sports obsessions and religious commitments. In the end, the reader will both realize the ways in which sports and religions compete for individual attention and the initial steps of conducting research on the topic of religions and sports.
