Roller Derby and Religious Competition

One of the important premises that follows from using an economic approach to religion is that competition exists and many different margins, and religious groups are not immune to this competition.  Religious groups must compete with other religious groups, but they must also compete with secular alternatives to religion.  An academic article just published in the journal Sociological Inquiry argues that roller derby can be understood as one of these secular alternatives.

The reference is:  Jason Wollschleger, 2022, "Roller Derby as a Secular Alternative to Religion" , Sociological Inquiry (it is currently in early view and so does not have an assigned issue yet). The author is a sociologist, not an economist, and he draws from ideas that have been developed outside of economics.  Some ideas that are important in the economic approach have corresponding ideas from other other approaches, and this should not be surprising because good ideas are found in many places.

From the abstract:

[R]oller Derby functions as a secular competitor to religion in the lives of these skaters in three key ways: (1) roller Derby participants make a significant investment of time, energy, money, and physical well-being into their sport; (2) roller Derby does, in fact, satisfy most if not all of the individual needs traditionally satisfied by religion as identified by Stolz et al (2016)...; and, (3) participation in roller Derby does conflict with individuals’ formal religious involvement.

Skim the article to find its main points and the types of evidence used by the author.

Note:  You will probably need to use UCI VPN to access this article from your home.