These days, thanks also largely to streaming superpowers such as Netflix and Disney+, sports documentaries have gone from being niche for the fans who are going to be in the room watching them anyway to significant viewing events for everyone. The game highlights and biographical retrospectives are not the only way to view sports anymore; it is because of these platforms. Almost always, they mix sports with drama and emotion, adding context, and sometimes even blur the line between the two.
From The Last Dance to Welcome to Wrexham, the grass is starting to grow on the sports docuseries boom in both entertainment and the sports industry itself. This evolution perfectly mirrors the way in which fans engage with sports content online. Today, watching and interacting with sports is a multi-platform experience. As fans follow their favorite teams’ stories, many also turn to platforms like Melbet, where watching and betting go hand in hand. This convergence allows fans to immerse themselves in the drama on screen while participating in the action through real-time betting, creating a more interactive and engaging sports culture that extends far beyond the traditional broadcast.
The Streaming Surge: Sports as Drama
Sports used to be live and fleeting, tied to a particular moment. These days, long-form storytelling is also translated behind the scenes – into locker rooms, boardrooms, personal lives, and fiery controversies – and platforms such as Netflix and Disney+ are embracing this approach. On a deeper level, this enables viewers to feel a sense of connection with the athletes and teams on an emotional level, even if they have never watched a single game.
For example, Netflix started the game by producing, together with ESPN, “The Last Dance,” the 2019 Emmy-winning documentary about Michael Jordan and his legendary 1997–98 season with the Chicago Bulls —a triumphant story about the legendary team and the star at its center. While sports fans and non-sports fans alike were thrilled by the story, it was more about basketball as a game itself than about any single person or even a team—a tale about leadership, legacy, and pressure. The success of that series proved that people around the world are hungry for compelling sports storytelling.
Disney+ and the Personal Touch
Disney+ has leveraged partnerships, including a collaboration with National Geographic through ESPN, to tell a different kind of story. A new type of sport-centric shows, like “Man in the Arena” (about Tom Brady) or “Welcome to Wrexham” (co-produced with FX, featuring Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney), took a different path. Instead of painting an epic picture of how a tale of a single sports discipline can be unraveled through a story of its most successful representatives, they instead chose to take identity into its centre. These shows focused on demonstrating how sports can influence a person or a group of people as a phenomenon, changing lives and perspectives, bringing athletes down to earth, and making them relatable.
Key to this shift is the dropping of the “it’s just the game” aspect of a person behind the jersey and showing them raw, vulnerable, and full of doubt, just like the rest of us. The series makes athletes relatable, telling storylines that we can connect with; they are emotional and culturally relevant. However, both approaches are beneficial and efficient in their own right, because people crave this type of tale – brilliantly shot, with deep dives into the psyche of an athlete, whether through the prism of success or doubt alike.
Key reasons behind the popularity of sports include:
- Multi-episode storytelling – A countdown of chapters makes the audience hungry for more.
- Good cinematography – Offering premium content through high production values transforms documentaries into cinematic content.
- Subtitles and dubbing broaden the reach of content to a global audience.
- Empathy – Personal interviews, as well as behind-the-scenes footage, help us see and connect with the person behind the jersey.
With a well-made sports documentary, you gain unparalleled access to team meetings, personal struggles, and the revelations of the off-field drama that make up untold stories worth telling.
Game-Changing Sports Documentaries to Watch
They are some of the best series that have redefined the genre:
- The Last Dance (Netflix): Chronicles Michael Jordan’s final season with the Bulls.
- Quarterback (Netflix): Follows NFL QBs like Patrick Mahomes and Kirk Cousins through their seasons.
- Break Point (Netflix): Behind-the-scenes tennis story.
- Welcome to Wrexham (Disney+) is about a pair of Hollywood hopefuls who restore a struggling Welsh football club.
- Man in the Arena (Disney+): Involving Tom Brady’s thoughts on his football career.
What’s Next for the Genre?
They are likely to become invested in sports content, in which we may see:
- More international sports stories (e.g., cricket, rugby, MMA).
- Athlete-produced series offering first-person perspectives.
- Social issue crossovers, such as race, gender, and activism.
Taking their message to youths and amateur sports, and exposing what it takes to make stars in the grassroots.
Final Thoughts
Clearly, Netflix and Disney+ are not only telling the story of certain sports, but they’re also transforming them into entirely new ways of experiencing their histories and engaging new people without any experience or associations with those kinds of tales. Throughout history, playing a sport professionally has had the potential to transform an athlete into a character, an icon, and create rivalries, while also turning seasons and games into story arcs. However, modern sports documentaries explore new ways of focusing their storytelling on an athlete. They ask – what if we look behind the icon and see a human being?
With sports documentaries no longer just for fans, but for anyone who loves a good story, this new age of creative work is built on respect, and that will result in a showing of excellence.
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