Analysis: Streamers have gone all in on sports documentaries and limited series, with behind-the-scenes footage and 'reality'-type production
From traditional broadcasters to the content streamers, sports programming is a heavyweight attraction. While subscription-based live sports television continues to dominate the market, content streamers including Disney+, Amazon Prime, and in particular Netflix, have led the rise in the so-called sports-adjacent programming in recent years. But what is sports-adjacent programming and why is it proving so popular with viewers and streaming platforms alike?
Sports-adjacent programming is the broadcasting of content related to live sports but not necessarily the live sporting event itself. As the name suggests, the genre is based on content generated around live sports, from behind-the-scenes footage and 'reality'-type production, to documentaries and limited series. At the heart of it all is bringing the viewer to a unique perspective and experience, maximising on the personalities, egos, and rivalries of the athletes, offering the viewer access and entertainment direct to their device.
The ‘experience’ is now the primary focus of live event producers, from live music to live sports. If you attend a large-scale sporting event you are likely to receive an email soon afterwards from the organising body asking you what your ‘match-day experience’ was like. With sporting income for clubs so dependent on performance and success, the turn to find an alternative ‘product’ has seen a move beyond the pitch or court.
From Netflix, Break Point official trailer
Stadium investments of late across Premiership football clubs is one example. Fans may mourn the tradition and heritage of certain stadia, but examples like Everton moving to the new Hill Dickinson stadium away from their Goodison base, and the announcement of Manchester United’s ‘intention’ to build a new 100,000-seater stadium as part of a wider area regeneration, are signs of product-over-performance, and serve as further means to maximise revenue despite sporting results. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, co-owner of Manchester United described the ambition to build "a truly state-of-the-art stadium that transforms the fan experience". All that lies adjacent to what the team’s results actually are.
Sports clubs and organisations have been looking beyond the horizons of their own domestic markets in recent years and towards attracting a new and younger fan-base, one who will engage with the brand and content of the team and sport on all media - live in-person or on-screen – both are big business. Sports adjacent programme is then a means to extend fan engagement beyond the bums-on-seats model of being physically present in the stadium.
Drive To Survive (DTS) has been the wildly successful pioneer of the sports-adjacent era. Streamed on Netflix, the series brings the viewer directly into the behind-the-scenes world of the F1 drivers, team leaders, and mega-rich owners at a dizzying pace.
From Netflix, Formula 1: Drive to Survive official trailer
Everything in DTS is pure drama. Formula 1 is the largest and most glamorous touring fit-up in world sport. From the super-yacht filled marina of Monaco, to the romance of the founding glory days of British motor racing at Silverstone, to the night-time street circuit of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, it confidentially oozes excitement, money, speed, and danger. There is also a cast of characters that any room of screen-writers would do well to have dreamt up, with villains, bad guys, fan favourites, Primadonna’s, and plucky underdogs, the F1 grid is a melting pot of glamour and controversy, the perfect TV mix.
The measure of DTS’ success and popular influence can be seen in F1 cracking the American market, one that is already saturated with its own sporting stable, but with high ratings and the regular sightings of Hollywood glamour on the pit lane, F1 is breaking America and deepening its financial return. Now with seven seasons, DTS is one of the most influential sports programmes of the last decade and has seen its production company, Box to Box Films, spawn a stable of similar pretenders, with varying levels of success.
Tour De France: Unchained followed the Tour De France peloton, focusing on the sheer physical toll of one of the world's most gruelling sporting events, as well as the rolling French countryside as the cyclists plough their way through chaotically manic fans thronging the roads as they pedal at lung-busting altitudes and gradients.
From Netflix, Six Nations: Full Contact official trailer
Six Nations: Full Contact delved inside Europe’s top-tier rugby tournament, with high production focus on bone-shaking hits and on-pitch impacts with softly-spoken giants off the pitch. The series lacked the drama of other similar examples, but is also hindered by the less global appeal of Rugby Union, with its focus solely on the European Six Nations teams only.
A surprising hit in the genre, again for Netflix, was the series Cheer, which followed a group of American college students perfecting their cheerleading routine ahead of a national championship, all in the middle of the typical late teenage relationship angst and college pressures. Break Point, set inside world tennis, failed to ignite after its opening series and could have seen greater success in a sport with a large global male and female playing body.
Disney+ has also taken the sports adjacent route with its series Welcome to Wrexham, which sees Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney take over a down-on-its-luck non-league football club in a working-class Welsh town and try to usher it to sporting greatness. Not unlike Netflix’s own series Sunderland ’Til I Die, Wrexham traded on its underdog working-class charms and local roots, but the on-pitch success the team then had, winning multiple promotions in successive seasons, would have been thought too far-fetched for TV had it been scripted.
From Rotten Tomatoes TV, Welcome to Wrexham trailer
Ultimately, any sports programme needs drama. If it doesn’t have the unpredictability of the live sporting event itself, driven by the emotional investment of fans anxiously waiting for the final whistle or the chequered flag, it must create its own. This had led to criticism of the overly curated and formulaic structure of these series. Max Verstappen, for example, refused to participate or be interviewed in DTS series 4 as he felt the producers were setting him up as a ruthlessly competitive villain. He had a strong case.
While the sports adjacent genre is firmly established it is, not yet at least, ‘too big to fail’. Fans still thrive on and aspire to attend live sports, to witness the drama first hand. While the primary focus on fan experience, from food to atmosphere, continues to occupy stadium managers and club owners alike, prioritising profit over sporting achievement, the risk of pricing real fans out of the event is very real. Sports adjacent viewing may be close second, if it doesn’t continue to provide entertainment as well as original insight, it may eventually prove to be a non-starter.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
