As season two of Swagger premieres on Apple TV Plus June 23, it joins an unprecedented number of basketball-themed series and films greeting viewers. Besides Swagger, the story of a teen hoops standout that’s inspired by the life of NBA star Kevin Durant, there’s The Crossover on Disney Plus; Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty on HBO; and Shooting Stars on Peacock. In terms of films, there’s the Air Jordan story Air on Prime Video and the redo of White Men Can’t Jump on Hulu.
The trend includes nonscripted programming, too, including Bill Walton film The Luckiest Guy in the World, which premiered on ESPN June 6; Showtime’s Wilt Chamberlain docuseries Goliath on July 14; and Stephen Curry: Underrated on Apple TV Plus July 21.
Reggie Rock Bythewood, creator, director and executive producer of Swagger, said when he was approached about taking Durant’s story to screen four or five years ago, he was also pitched two other basketball-themed series. “I don’t know what was in the air,” he told B+C.
Isaiah Hill plays teen superstar Jace Carson in Swagger. The project was hatched, Bythewood said, when Durant got talking to Brian Grazer of Imagine Television Studios at a social event. “I was given the space to do something to stand out and separate ourselves from the other basketball shows,” Bythewood said. “That was inspiring.”
Blame Jordan
There are substantially more shows and films related to basketball right now than programming centered on football, soccer, baseball or other sports. The trend began when docuseries The Last Dance, about Michael Jordan’s last season with the Chicago Bulls, aired on ESPN and ABC in spring 2020, and streamed on Netflix. With the pandemic dominating life in America, the high-flying exploits of Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman were just what many desired to see.
“The Last Dance certainly helped” start the trend, SportsBrandedMedia founder and CEO John Meindl said.
A couple of years later hoops movie Hustle, with Adam Sandler as a down-on-his-luck scout who finds a stunning prospect in Spain, came out on Netflix. Based on the success of The Last Dance and Hustle, several basketball series followed.
What is it about basketball that makes the sport pop in the entertainment world? Teams have five players at one time, while football has 11 offensive players and 11 more defenders. Players don’t wear helmets or facemasks, eliminating a boundary between fans and athletes.
Basketball offers a basic goal — get the ball in the hoop — but requires an exceptional level of athleticism to do it well. “There’s a simplicity to the game of basketball that makes it easy to understand, yet it has an athletic elegance that elevates said simplicity,” said Rodney Barnes, executive producer of Winning Time, a series about the Lakers in the ‘80s that starts season two August 6. “There’s a sense of individual expression in the game which can highlight a character’s personality while not departing from the ongoing narrative.”
The sport is also extremely diverse and plays well around the globe due to its expat superstars. The MVP of this month’s NBA Finals was Nikola Jokic of Serbia, star center for the Denver Nuggets.
“The international love of the game has created a talented pipeline of players beyond U.S. borders,” Linda Ong, founder and CEO of brand consultancy Cultique, said.
Real-Life Video Game
While fouls and timeouts slow the action, basketball nonetheless runs at a pace that football and baseball cannot boast of, which appeals to a wider swath of fans. “Whereas baseball is more methodical and football stops and starts, modern basketball moves at its own up-tempo rhythm; a frenetic pace that mimics a video game, appealing to a younger audience,” Barnes said. “Its ability to cross lines of class, race and socioeconomic barriers creates a wellspring of storytelling possibilities.”
Entertainment pundits also describe a culture in basketball that doesn’t quite exist in other sports. The sport intersects with fashion and hip-hop in ways other sports do not. Ong credits the NBA for “leaning into cultural relevance with its fans, as opposed to marketing at them.”
Endorsement deals and strong social media personas further break down the walls between star player and fan. “Top basketball players and their endorsement deals are front and center in the media more so than other professional athletes,” Meindl said. “There’s a unique culture surrounding basketball.”
Producing On and Off the Court
Star players are also active in film and television production. LeBron James’s SpringHill productions include Shooting Stars, about his on-court exploits in high school, The Crossover and game show The Wall, among many others. Stephen Curry’s Unanimous Media projects include Apple TV Plus documentary Stephen Curry: Underrated and mini-golf spectacle Holey Moley on ABC.
A primary challenge of scripted basketball shows is finding actors who can play the game. Speaking before the April premiere of The Crossover, inspired by Kwame Alexander’s novel of poems about teen brothers balancing hoops and a tricky home life, executive producer and co-showrunner Alexander said: “When we casted it, we looked for identical twins who can act, who are ballers. Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”
Producers then focused on finding excellent actors to play the Bell brothers, and putting them through what Alexander called a hoops “boot camp.”
“We figured it would be easier to train them how to be ballers than train them to be great actors,” he said.
Winning Time’s Barnes too spoke of teaching actors the points of the game, and bringing in more seasoned players as doubles when the situation calls for it. “Some basketball acumen is definitely preferred,” he said. “But if there’s athletic ability, aspects of the game can be taught.”
A Certain Swagger Sets Show Apart
Bythewood said Swagger star Isaiah Hill knows his way around a basketball court. “When he dunks, he doesn’t just dunk,” Bythewood said. “He puts a little hot sauce on it.”
With so many hoops-themed series and films out there in 2023, Bythewood knows Swagger must offer something special to stand out. He spoke of aiming to make the viewer feel like they’re “part of the game, not a spectator.” That involved putting camera operators on Rollerblades to better help them keep up with the high-speed action. Sending a skates-wearing operator up and off a ramp meant fully capturing Jace Carson executing a slam dunk.
“We put you inside the game in a way that’s not been seen before,” Bythewood said.
