The Group Chat: Love Island, but make it sports

One part your favorite sports stories, one part Love Island, nothing captures a GISTer’s diverse interests quite like a sports docuseries. These ubiquitous films and TV series give sports the reality TV treatment, bringing you closer to the game than ever before.

• They can turn niche followings into global fandom, redefining the sport’s culture in the process — especially for female fans.

• So today, in honor of the groundbreaking 24th season of the NFL docuseries “Hard Knocks” premiering earlier this week, we’re digging into sports docuseries and how they build culture from the couch up. Lights, camera…

Docuseries are central to sports culture, offering a common entry point to fandom. They aren’t just for diehards — docuseries can bring in new fans all while entertaining and engaging the existing base.

• Take the wildly popular Netflix series “Drive to Survive,” which spurred a massive growth period for Formula 1, including a 58% increase in viewership between the show’s third and fourth seasons alone.

• We had rarely covered motorsports at The GIST…until our team and audience watched “Drive to Survive.” Now, we’re obsessed.

Sports documentaries have existed for decades, but the aforementioned “Hard Knocks” revolutionized the genre. HBO released the first season profiling an NFL team’s preseason training camp in 2001, changing the game with behind-the-scenes footage and a candid, intimate vibe. It gave fans direct access to hidden aspects of the NFL, and it’s still thriving 24 years later.

• From ESPN’s 30 for 30 series to Netflix’s sports doc machine, the genre has exploded since “Hard Knocks” first hit the screen, creating shared cultural experiences around some of sports’ biggest moments and stars.

So what makes a sports doc great? Here are a few reasons why they’re such impactful vehicles for storytelling…and why fans can’t get enough of them.

• 👀 Unprecedented access to athletes. As if their on-pitch heroics weren’t enough, watching Under Pressure and seeing how members of the USWNT handled the limelight during the 2023 FIFA women’s World Cup made us feel like we knew them — and made us love them even more.

• 🔓 Making the game more accessible. Docuseries help new fans learn the rules and vets deepen their understanding of the game. Did you know the ins and outs of F1 before “Drive to Survive”? We certainly didn’t.

• 🫖 Tea. The genre’s trademark is highlighting the drama that happens in the locker room before and after the game. Case in point: “America’s Sweethearts,” the recent doc following the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, could have aired on Bravo.

As women’s sports continue their meteoric rise, sports docuseries have been and will remain central to their success. Fans are more likely to engage with a sport when they feel like they know the athletes, so series offering a look at athletes’ on- and off-court lives can do wonders for growing the game.

• Plus, these docuseries give athletes a platform to tell the stories they want to tell, showing the world who they really are and highlighting the invisible grind that led to their greatness.