Best TV Shows About Sports

Sports stories have traditionally performed well in movies and TV shows. There is something about the passion and the sheer competitiveness between athletes that makes such shows very entertaining to watch.

Even though sports are designed for entertaining people, they are more than just a couple of athletes playing against each other. In order to become the best of the best, you need to go through hell, sacrifice a lot of things from your life, and work harder than ever before. Sport is pushing people to the limits, and such stories inspire directors and film companies to produce sports movies or TV shows.

In the past couple of years, the sports genre in movies and TV series has moved a couple of steps up. Nowadays, we have many funny, inspiring, and fun-to-watch sports TV shows on different platforms and in today’s article, we will highlight the ones that are worth watching.

Friday Night Lights

Looking for the best sports TV show of all time? Well, Friday Night Lights is one of the television masterpieces that earned a special place in the TV show industry, and it is hard to imagine ever being supplanted from its throne.

Throughout the five seasons of Friday Night Lights, you will capture the agony, setbacks, passion, and difficulty of high school football in a small Texas town where football is as big as religion.

The story of the show is full of heart and shows the difficult path that footballers need to go through in order to compete in the big league. On top of that, the show is packed with incredible talent from the cast to its directors and scriptwriters.

It is one of the best sports shows that every sports enthusiast must watch.

Ted Lasso

The idea about this show was born after NBC Sports released a funny sketch seven years ago, where the American Football coach named Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) manages to get hired as the manager of Tottenham, one of the top soccer clubs in England’s Premier League.

This is a very funny sports TV show where the shouting alpha male with a southern accent is trying to figure out a totally unfamiliar sport. Since he is a stubborn coach, sometimes his wrong lessons from America will not play well in soccer.

In the TV show, Ted Lasso is focused on AFC Richmond, a middling English soccer club that is facing relegation. The coach is a more like motivator rather than being a tactical genius.

With a superb cast, a funny story, and some sports magic, you cannot expect anything less than perfection. Ted Lasso won 6 Emmys in last year’s award show, including awards for actors Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham and Brett Goldstein.

Brockmire

Fans are clearly not happy about the current state of baseball. What was American’s pastime has now fallen behind other sports like football. Then along, we get a TV show like Brockmire that reminds us about the eternal American presence and its importance for American culture.

With Hank Azaria playing the role of his life as a baseball broadcaster Jim Brockmire, who was once at the top of his game, and unfortunate events cause him to lose his job and his sanity. He will eventually return on a big gate in an independent league team in Morristown, Pennsylvania.

The rest of the series is like a big love letter not only for baseball in general but the messy human experience with the sport and how it affects many people.

Playmakers

Despite being one of the highest-rated shows on the network, ESPN didn’t survive the pressure from the National Football League and was cancelled after just 11 episodes. It seems like the NFL didn’t like the story behind Playmakers, which to be honest is a bit brutal on the sport.

Instead of focusing on somehow romantic storylines like the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history, for example, they showed the other side of football and aspects that are normally taken from the spotlight.

Playmakers is a TV show based on a fictional football team, playing in a fictional league, and highlights the negative landscape around the sport. In Playmakers, athletes go through a hell of a lot of negative things from domestic abuse, fashioned drugs, performance-enhancing drugs, concussions, and more.

This was also the first series that decided to include a gay player, a decade before Michael Sam and Carl Nassib publicly reviled their sexual orientation.

Since it is a fictional show, and a very good one, it is strange to see why NFL wanted the show to be canceled. With that said, it is still a great show that shows a different perspective of football that could be a nice change from traditional sports TV shows.