The Sports/Religion/Crime Overlap: UK and US Compared

Motives underlying the sports/religion/crime-overlap differ in the UK compared to the US.  According to this article from the BBC News, one-third of religious crime in Scotland is football related.  Different religious sects tend to support different teams; add alcohol to the picture and you get crime induced by rivalries in the truest sense.  In the U.S., it's simpler, but for neither better nor worse.  For example, something tells me the infamous Pacers/Pistons brawl wasn't quite so pensive...and watching football would have been a more appropriate Sunday activity for these religious-figures-turned-criminals than attempting to set a moral compass. [Michele Berry]