Why football matters beyond fandom

What does American football reveal about who we are and who we’re becoming?

Watch the video of this episode on YouTube here.

Russell Moore talks with cultural critic and essayist Chuck Klosterman about his new book Football and what the sport tells us about masculinity, community, memory, violence, and belief. From Roman gladiator games to Super Bowl halftime shows, and from church attendance to television economics, Klosterman argues that football is more than entertainment: it’s one of the last truly shared experiences in American life—and one that may not survive the century.

Even for listeners who don’t care about football at all, this conversation is about the deeper question beneath the spectacle: what happens when a culture’s rituals outlast its imagination?

Moore and Klosterman discuss football as a made-for-television phenomenon, the way fandom shapes identity and irrationality, and how football functions as an unofficial secular holiday—one that churches once resisted, then accommodated, and eventually surrendered to. Along the way, they examine agency, violence, masculinity, and why moral critiques of football provoke more outrage than theological disagreements ever could.

The conversation widens to include politics, class, religion, and even Billy Joel—ending with the question: when future generations judge our era by one piece of football culture, what will they see?

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“The Russell Moore Show” is a production of Christianity Today

Executive Producer: Clarissa Moll

Host: Russell Moore

Producer: Leslie Thompson

Associate Producer: McKenzie Hill

Senior Producer: Matt Stevens

Audio engineering by Kevin Morris

Video producer: Sam Cedar

Theme Song: “Citizens” by Jon Guerra

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