Religions (Mar 2020)

Foucault for Heisman: College Football and the Liturgies of Power

  • Jason M. Smith

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11030122
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 3
p. 122

Abstract

Read online

This essay attempts to give a new sort of answer to the question of whether or not sport and sports fandom are a religion through the work of Foucault on “power.” Looking specifically at college football in North America, I examine the ways in which Foucault’s different variations of power have and still do function within what we call “big-time” college football. I thus proffer that Foucault’s oeuvre helps us to see the sport and religion question in a new way—not as two phenomena similar in practice but in modes of power. I conclude by offering suggestions for how Foucault’s work might offer suggestions for imagining new configurations of collegiate athletics and its governance.

Keywords