Go to any town on a Saturday morning, big or small, and chances are there is a sporting event taking place. And if you decide to attend that event you are assured to see people everywhere competing or spectating with passion and pride. People wearing team colours, performing pre-match rituals, analysing every little detail of the game.
             For sport is not merely a thing for spare time anymore, no sir. It is a religion, a time of worship, which brings people of all ages, races and genders together here in Australia.
             Young and old agree that Australians are obsessed with sport and it is undoubtedly the newest and fastest growing religion of our country.
             Sport is where the majority of Australians, including myself and I'm sure many of you, choose to focus their respect and admiration, and is linked to feelings of national pride.
             Newspapers devote entire sections of their daily news to sport, and television is no different. Foxtel has two channels which produce 24 hour a day sporting coverage and on the weekend you can't change the channel without seeing the golf, or NRL, or AFL, or swimming or...well you get the picture.
             Last year in the list of shows viewed by the most people, 6 out of the top 10 shows were sporting events. And the year before, the Sydney 2000 Olympics wiped the floor clean with all the other television competition.
             I was overseas when the Sydney Olympics were on and when telling people I was from Australia I got the weirdest looks. 'Why on earth are you here, when the Olympics is on right in your backyard,' they'd ask. I didn't really have a response. These people reacted as though I had forsaken my religion. And I suppose in a way I had. Sport is such a huge thing in Australia and I was missing the biggest moment in Australian sporting history.
             Think about it though. How is sport different from any other major religion?
             Dr Barry Spurr, an academic critic of sport in the medi...