New York, USA - It has long been noted that in certain parts of the United States, a fine line separates sports from religion. But at a minor league indoor football game last month in Birmingham, Ala., fans may have witnessed as transparent an attempt to merge football and church as had ever been tried.
Before kickoff, a Christian band called Audio Adrenaline entertained the crowd. Promoters gave away thousands of Bibles and bobblehead dolls depicting biblical characters like Daniel, Noah and Moses. And when the home team, the Birmingham Steeldogs, took the field, they wore specially made jerseys with the book and number of bible verses printed on the back.
Donnie Rhodes, a children's minister at Gardendale's First Baptist Church near Birmingham, took 47 sixth graders to the game by bus and said it was the perfect outing. "It was affordable, safe and spiritual," he said. "And the kids just thought it was the coolest thing."
Mr. Rhodes and his students were at the latest in ballpark promotions: Faith Nights, a spiritual twist on Frisbee Nights and Bat Days. While religious-themed sports promotions were once largely a Bible Belt phenomenon that entailed little more than ticket discounts for church and synagogue groups, Faith Nights feature bands, giveaways and revival-style testimonials from players. They have migrated from the Deep South to northern stadiums from Spokane, Wash., to Bridgewater, N.J.
Third Coast Sports, a company in Nashville that says it specializes in church marketing and event planning for sports teams, has scheduled 70 this year in 44 cities, and many teams produce Faith Nights on their own.
They are about to become even bigger. This summer, the religious promotions will hit Major League Baseball. The Atlanta Braves are planning three Faith Days this season, the Arizona Diamondbacks one. The Florida Marlins have tentatively scheduled a Faith Night for September.
The religious promotions are spreading because they offer something for fans and for teams. Churches get discounted tickets to family-friendly evenings of music and sports with a Christian theme. And in return, they mobilize their vast infrastructure of e-mail and phone lists, youth programs and chaperones, and of course their bus fleets, to help fill the stands.
"Religion is a very big component of people's lives around here, and churches are very well organized," said Derek Schiller, a senior vice president for sales and marketing for the Braves, whose first Faith Day is scheduled for July 27. "If they decide they're going to have an outing and it's going to be an Atlanta Braves baseball game, rest assured there will be a big participation."
The mixture of sports with old-time religion is not to everyone's liking. Officials of arenafootball2, a minor league of the Arena Football League, threatened to fine the Birmingham Steeldogs for wearing their biblically themed jerseys during the game last month because they violated league policy. To comply, the Steeldogs wore the special jerseys before and after the game, but not during play.
"The league quite frankly didn't have the temperature for it," said Scott Myers, a managing partner of the Steeldogs. "They'd just as soon stay out of politics and religion."
Organizers of the promotions said they were mindful of fans of other faiths. Brent High, the president of Third Coast Sports, said he went out of his way to avoid what he called "ambush evangelism."
"If we were doing something that was controversial, that would defeat the whole business purpose," he said. "If we'd had resistance, the teams would run from it."
So far the promotions seem to be working where they count the most, at the box office. Attendance at Faith Nights organized by the Nashville Sounds, a Class AAA baseball team, are 59 percent higher than the team's average attendance.
The Steeldogs average around 5,200 fans; Faith Night last month brought in just under 6,200.
Glenn Yaeger, the general manager of the Sounds, said he knew of only one promotion that was more effective than Faith Night: fireworks. Not one to let an opportunity pass, Mr. Yaeger now caps off Faith Nights with a fireworks display.
"Teams are always looking for ways to put fannies in the seats," Mr. High said, "and this is just a creative way to reach a certain demographic of people."
That demographic was out in force on May 25 in Bridgewater, N.J., for a Faith Night at the minor league baseball game between the Somerset Patriots and the Camden Riversharks. Star 99.1, a Christian radio station, broadcast from outside the stadium, as a contemporary Christian band called 9 Feet Tall played.
Before the game, Jamie Damm, a youth pastor at the nearby Zarephath Christian Church, gave a short speech from the field about the need for connecting with Jesus, and he threw out the ceremonial first pitch.
Patrick McVerry, the general manager of the Patriots, said the team was trying to accommodate church groups without altering the experience too much for other fans. Beer sales, for example, were not affected, he said. "We don't want to go over the top," Mr. McVerry said.
The Braves are taking a similarly careful approach. They plan to sell a special voucher for their Faith Day in July. After the game, officials will clear the stands, then readmit those with the voucher, who will be treated to an hour and a half of Christian music and a testimonial from the ace pitcher John Smoltz.
"Faith days will not interfere with our regular course of business," Mr. Schiller of the Braves said. "It's somebody's choice to participate."
Much of the spread of Faith Nights can be attributed to Mr. High, an avid baseball fan and former youth minister from Tennessee. In 2003, as the church and youth programs manager for the Sounds, he began reaching out to the roughly 3,000 churches within 75 miles of Nashville.
He brought in sponsors to fund Bible and bobblehead giveaways, and he joined forces with VeggieTales, a popular line of Christian-themed children's videos, books and music featuring animated vegetables. VeggieTales' slogan is "Sunday morning values, Saturday morning fun," and Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber have become fixtures at Faith Nights around the country.
For the Braves, support from churches could translate into increased ticket sales. There are some 5,400 churches within 75 miles of Atlanta, Mr. Schiller said, and the team will use its advertising budget to get the word out to those congregations via television, radio and the Internet.
While Faith Nights may be good for the box office and perhaps even the soul, there is one area where all that spirituality does not seem to have much effect: the scoreboard. On Faith Nights over the past two years, the Nashville Sounds have compiled a record of 15-17.
"On Faith Night, God cares a lot more about what's happening in the stands than about what happens on the field," Mr. High said.