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Evolution has once again come to the sports documentary space. As Brad Pitt so eloquently said when portraying Billy Beane in “Moneyball,” it has become “adapt or die.” For networks, streamers, directors, producers, athletes and all others up and down the documentary and content creation food chain, that has meant not only a change in what projects get made, but also what lines of business get created. “It’s not a boring business,” said Ken Rodgers, NFL Films’ vice president and executive producer. “Steve Sabol used to always say it was a cyclical business, and ‘Don’t worry that this show isn’t as popular right now; it’s going to come back around.’” Sports documentaries certainly aren’t going anywhere, but all sides are facing tougher choices as to what content makes it to screens. Projects, particularly “follow” docs, have to come with more than just a big name, because a good number of those efforts did not reach desired audience metrics, including Netflix shows such as “SEC Football: Any Given Saturday,” “Starting 5″ and “Break Point.” “Is there less demand? Yeah, probably. … You’ve had ebbs and flows of more of these projects hitting the market, more platforms wrapping their arms around this space,” said Connor Schell, CEO of Words + Pictures, whose recent efforts include “Miracle: The Boys of ’80″ for Netflix, “The Kingdom” for ESPN, “Celtics City” for HBO and “Full Speed: The Daytona 500” for Prime Video. “At times, you’ve had sort of a flood of projects, but I think we’ve sort of gone back to a very healthy market, where there’s really high demand for the highest quality stories.” Upcoming sports documentaries “All or Nothing: Manchester United,” Prime Video Cadillac F1 Team Documentary, Disney+ Coach K/Duke basketball, Paramount+ “Give Me The Ball!” (Billie Jean King), ESPN “Hard Knocks: In Season” (division TBD), HBO “Saban,” ESPN “Untold Mr. T: I Pity the Fool,” Netflix “Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly,” Netflix “When America Took the Field,” MLB Network During the streaming wars earlier this decade, premium docs sold for prices approaching $8 million on the high end. However, platform demand has changed, and with documentaries themselves not necessarily being a driver of subscriptions, prices are now well below that figure. “If you just look at dollars spent in our space, 2021/2022 to now, the market has changed,” Religion of Sports CEO Ameeth Sankaran said. “Within that, follow docs themselves are more challenging.” Howard Owens, co-CEO of Propagate Content and one of the producers behind the “Untold” series at Netflix, with Maclain and Chapman Way of Stardust Frames, also noted that live-game rights have put a dent in budgets for docs. “There’s just not as much money being spent on original content, and part of that is because so much money is going to sports rights,” he said. Finding the cash So how are filmmakers bringing documentary work to the screen? There are three common approaches: 1. Networks or streaming platforms get rights to a story through a separate deal or within an existing rights deal. Then, a production company or specific director is sought, perhaps even through an RFP-type process. 2. Someone in the creative process has a story to tell and seeks the right platform partner to tell it and, more importantly, fund it. A budget is then worked up, and resources are allocated. 3. A production company finds material or a subject matter that it is interested in and has a place in the market. The company will begin making the doc and funding it with existing capital. Sometimes, outside capital partners are brought in to complete the project. Then, at a certain point in the process, the company will talk to a platform about partnering. Schell said the last scenario is often where Words + Pictures, backed by Chernin Entertainment, finds itself. Before searching for more capital or a platform, the company may already be out in the field doing the work. “The interviews are high quality. We can show them to [a platform],” he said. “We’ve had access to certain things. We’ve sourced the archive. We know the material’s there. And we’re very confident that we can bring this to life.” What’s working? Netflix is among the platforms that remains heavily invested in sports documentaries. Maclain and Chapman Way said they have already received a green light for “Untold” from Netflix into 2027 and 2028. Those films, around 30 to date, have revolved around one-off, lesser-known stories, and a documentary project based on reasonably priced archival footage combined with sit-down interviews won’t be costly. The “Untold” series even produced Netflix’s top sports doc during the first half of 2026 with “The Death & Life of Lamar Odom,” which drew 14.6 million views and even topped “Drive to Survive” Season 8 (9.5 million). For Rodgers, even as NFL Films is busier than ever — including 60-70 hours of premium documentary work that were funded internally and are coming in the next year — it isn’t a surprise that follow docs are slowing down, especially given the open-ended nature that many of them have. “The success of ‘Hard Knocks’ since 2001 has largely been based on the finite nature of the time frame,” Rodgers said of HBO’s unscripted docuseries on NFL teams’ preparations before and during the season. “The preseason ends, cuts are made, the roster is set and that’s where the story ends. And then hopefully you pick up the story in the next chapter in the regular season.” “The open-ended access depends so much on results that you have to put some guardrails around it, which we’ve been really successful in doing,” he added. “And limitations very often lead to creative breakthroughs. … Look at someone like Joe Flacco [in “Quarterback”], where he’s at in the length of his career, what he’s trying to do to stay on a team, to stay on the field. And it’s completely unique to him. And it doesn’t really matter in the show that his team doesn’t perform as well as he hopes. It’s a personal story.” Where do things stand? “I don’t think we’re in a golden age,” said Kfir Goldberg, senior vice president of creative development at OBB Media and Fanatics Studios. “Sports docs, as a whole, have been challenging [compared to the early part of the decade], but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth the challenge, because a lot of those stories are really valuable to tell.” But even as times may be tougher for documentaries, platforms still need content — and good content. “The appetite for sports documentaries is incredibly high,” said Park Stories founder Rand Getlin, who directed and produced “U.S. Against the World” for HBO leading into the 2026 FIFA World Cup. “There was just this flood of athlete-focused documentary content that the market was finding and wasn’t necessarily performing as well as the star power may have led you to believe it should. And so that creates a pullback and people trying to figure out, ‘Well, why is this stuff not working?’ … You will get people into the fold because you have a big-name athlete, but what are you doing with the access?” Price has become much more important, and media companies just aren’t paying fees well north of $5 million like they were during the streaming wars. But high-end content doesn’t come cheap. For “U.S. Against the World,” Getlin’s team spent 300 days in production, covering 67 cities in 12 countries, and negotiated with 48 rights holders for content. “That’s unbelievably expensive,” he said. “You’re not going to be able to do it at the lower end of the market in terms of price points. So there are fewer … top-of-the-market, hyper-premium, very well-financed documentaries.” ESPN Original Entertainment could be perhaps the most unique home for documentary-style content, and the company’s internal team still has the bandwidth to tackle storytelling on platforms like “SportsCenter Featured,” “E:60,” “My Wish,” “Monday Night Countdown,” “Sunday NFL Countdown” and “College GameDay.” ESPN’s breadth also means open-sourcing storytelling on a number of projects, such as the six-part series on Nick Saban in a collaboration between ESPN and Words + Pictures that debuts Oct. 8. “For that sort of content, we rely on our production partners … to deliver one-of-a-kind stories that, in many ways, we couldn’t do any other way,” said Brian Lockhart, ESPN senior vice president for original content. “Even though he’s our talent, Words + Pictures was able to create a narrative and a value proposition for Nick directly that made it make sense for all parties involved.” ESPN took the same approach this year with “Give Me The Ball!” under the “30 for 30” banner, as the Billie Jean King doc — which premiered at Sundance but does not yet have a TV air date — was done through Ridley Scott Associates, Story Syndicate and Elton John’s Rocket Sports. Lockhart’s projects around Brittney Griner, the New York Yankees and the early 2000s Galácticos of Real Madrid are among the biggest still in development. “When we get a chance to do our big series and our big films, we’re just as invested as we’ve ever been,” Lockhart said. Branching out With the market for traditional sports documentaries being slower, many content companies have adjusted and built out other verticals. For a company like Omaha Productions, which has been behind well-known docuseries like “Quarterback,” “Starting 5,” “Unreal” and “Receiver,” its business has shifted in a number of directions. There’s unscripted work, such as the “Peyton’s Places” franchise for ESPN, scripted shows like “Chad Powers” for Hulu and podcasts for Scott Van Pelt, Mina Kimes, Peter Schrager, Greg McElroy, Brian Windhorst and Chiney Ogwumike. But an area where Omaha is really shining is live shows, including the World Series of Poker, ManningCast, Pro Bowl, Country Music Association Awards, NFL Honors and ESPYs. “You’re still trying to show the audience things that they wouldn’t necessarily see during regular game play, whether that’s with special interviews or a different kind of camera,” said Dan Gati, Omaha’s head of content. “‘Access’ is obviously a word that’s overused, but we’re trying to show people things that maybe they haven’t seen in that sport before.” Live programming also has been a centerpiece for Fanatics Studios since its joint venture with OBB Media launched earlier this year. The company is very bullish on the space and has already worked on the Fanatics Flag Football Classic, the ESPYs (alongside Words + Pictures) and the annual Fanatics Fest. One reason one-off live productions make sense is the rising costs of sports TV rights for a league. “It’s just not our business, and nor should it be,” Goldberg said regarding league rights. “But being able to create these live sport experiences, and then the content ecosystem that comes from that, is what we do best. … We’re going to continue to just ideate in that space and try to create things that aren’t competitive to the leagues, but are very complementary.” Live production has been a cornerstone for Words + Pictures since it launched in 2021, as the company brought over a wealth of talent from ESPN. Last week, Words + Pictures produced the inaugural “Spikes Under the Lights,” a made-for-TV volleyball tournament that featured SMU, Penn State, Nebraska and Florida in the first women’s volleyball event at an NFL venue (AT&T Stadium). “Typically, we are bringing to life intellectual property that is owned by someone else,” Schell said. “So the ESPYs are ESPN’s property. They’re paying us a fee to help them produce it. But they own the event. They sell the sponsorships. They capture all the revenue around it and all those things.”