Dr. Marcio Telles
Associate Professor in the Tuiuti University of Paraná, Brazil. He teaches and conducts research on the relationships between media, technology and sports, with an emphasis on sports television.
Email: tellesjornal@gmail.com
Twitter: @tellesjornal
Exactly one week before the opening of the Paris Olympics, Simone Biles Rising has arrived on Netflix. This documentary series, consisting of two episodes, follows the struggles of the most decorated gymnast in history against mental health problems. Beyond setting the scene for Biles’ coverage at the Games, Simone Biles Rising exemplifies how sports have moved towards “prestige TV” in their quest for storytelling and quality content.
It’s no surprise, then, that two more episodes of Simone Biles Rising are already scheduled for release by Netflix in the fall of 2024, presumably to showcase Biles’ performance at the Paris Games. Like other recent sports docuseries such as All or Nothing (Amazon), Drive to Survive, and Break Point (both Netflix), the focus has shifted from securing expensive broadcast rights to finding competitions, tournaments, seasons, clubs, or individual athletes capable of producing compelling stories for serial consumption. Even better if these stories can be framed within the modes of fictional TV shows.
Despite being classified as documentaries by the streaming platform and even by scholars, shows like Simone Biles Risingcrosses television genres: it is both documentary and narrative show, journalism and drama, prime-time television and advertising campaign. This blending of genres highlights a broader trend in media and shows how TV producers have (re)discovered the incredible storytelling potential of sports, now disassociated from the journalistic coverage of sports as “hard news”.
One of the most well-known descriptions of sports is from American anthropologist Clifford Geertz’s research into the Balinese cockfight, in which Geertz characterizes sports as “stories we tell about ourselves”. Sports are culturally formed “meaningful” experiences that are woven into common narratives. Hollywood and hours of TV fiction have an impact on these stories.
Victoria Johnson observed recently that while sports TV offers a wide range of programs, its predominant style is melodramatic. Ten years ago, Linda Williams proposed a different definition of melodrama, one that went beyond the idea of excess. Rather, she suggested that melodrama be viewed as a “narrative mode” that use suspense to establish “moral legibility,” so enabling the viewers to empathize with the differences between the opposing sides. It’s no surprise then that Biles’ story fits well into a “hero’s arc” with her “reward” in Paris (three golds and one silver) portrayed as a direct consequence of her grueling “ordeal” at the last Games.
Like blockbuster heroes, Simone Biles displays her virtue not only in her spectacular actions but also in her particular form of suffering, which makes these subsequent actions morally comprehensible. This is the foundation of the melodramatic mode: the pathos of the suffering victim converted into righteous action is part of the cultural strength of melodrama—and Hollywood (Rocky Balboa, anyone?).
More than the action on the court, these new narrative forms aim to reveal the sport and its competitors from the “inside out.” These documentaries operate under the premise of “total access,” which promises unfiltered footage and quotes—especially considering the increasingly stale press area interviews. But in the end, by offering the “ultimate truth,” these shows use fiction as their main narrative device.
Given that sports may serve as story devices, the distinction between information and story—which has sustained sports news coverage for decades—seems to have lost its meaning. What we have now are basic facts—that Manchester City won the treble in 2022–2023 and that Biles is an undisputed talent—told inside the narrative frameworks of fictional television shows.
These stories have protagonists, who act as the main characters, and antagonists. In a series like Break Point, which depicts the next generation of tennis players who may outperform the older GOAT generation, Rafael Nadal is portrayed as the scary villain to be defeated, including the typical horn leitmotif employed for antagonists in contemporary superhero films.
If live sports were “the magic bullet for the streaming wars,” VoD platforms may have found a new weapon. Following Break Point’s debut on the networks last year, the ATP reported a notable rise in its online engagement. However, the same could not be true for the live viewership of the circuit’s broadcasting. F1’s ratings in the US may have grownfollowing Drive to Survive, but there’s no denying that the show appeals to a younger audience that is impatient with dull and more technical races by providing far more drama and intrigue than traditional sportscasts. These days, a Sunday afternoon spent in front of the TV set watching the live broadcast devoid of access to drivers and team strategies is not as exciting as watching the Formula One season as a TV show, with all its melodramatic confrontations between heroes and villains.
Even if television continues to be the primary platform for the Olympics, we also need to consider the television formats in which sports are mediated. As sports are being presented in a more story-driven format, sports may finally be entering the era of time-shifting. Detached from live coverage, sports TV is now following, with a few decades of delay, other television formats. In the age of Netflix, sport is more than mediatized—it is “narrativized.”
