The 20 best TV series about sports of all time

Friday Night Lights is the ultimate sports television series. It has heart, drama, and genuinely interesting plots. The series shows why high school sports are such a major part of American culture and establishes itself as its own part of American culture. 

If there’s any sports television series to contend with Friday Night Lights, it’s Ted Lasso. Everything about the series was done well. The character development, the writing, the sets — nothing about it was lazy. The series ended too soon for some, but for others, it was perfect. 

Not all great sports television series are scripted. Plenty of sports documentaries have captured millions. The Last Dance isn’t just a great sports documentary. It’s a great documentary. It gives people a new look at Michael Jordan and shows why many will forever consider him the GOAT.

You don’t have to be a fan of The Karate Kid to enjoy Cobra Kai, but it certainly helps. The critically acclaimed comedy series about karate is a good reminder that there are more sports to care about than basketball and football. 

Sometimes, the best series give you insight into something you know little about. GLOW did that through a comedic lens to uncover what life was like for female wrestlers in the ‘80s. And there was plenty of drama, too. 

The idea to make a comedy series about a group of friends’ fantasy football league was fantastic, and the execution was just as good. The League was irreverent and entertaining and perfectly showed how consuming a fantasy sports league really is. 

There’s something for everyone on 30 for 30. The ESPN docuseries hit sports from about every angle possible. Even if you don’t care for sports, the stories are sometimes unbelievable and almost always inspiring. 

Anyone who’s a fan of Kevin Durant should check out Swagger. The series is loosely based on his life, showing what made him into the star basketball player he is today. It's a genuinely good series, even if you’re not a fan of KD. 

There is unending lore about the Lakers, and one of the most interesting times in their history was dramatized in Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty. The show ended surprisingly after season 2, but it was great while it lasted.

Some of the best sports movies ever made revolve around football, and the same can be said for television series. All American was plenty different from Friday Night Lights, but it had that same undeniable pull. 

Hard Knocks is another intriguing TV series about football, except this one chronicles real players. Every season follows a new NFL team’s efforts to improve as an organization, showing just how hard it is to be a successful professional athlete. 

Netflix didn’t just create a TV series in Cheer, but it also created a moment. Cheer showed viewers who were unfamiliar with the world of competitive cheerleading just how intense it can be, and it proved that those competitors are just as much athletes as those who excel in any other sport. 

Long before there was Cheer and long before there was America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, there was Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team. The series followed the team year after year and showed that it’s just as difficult a journey whether you’re a rookie or a veteran. It also highlighted the beauty of finally realizing a lifelong dream. 

Anything that Danny McBride is involved in is great. His series Eastbound & Down had audiences rolling with the hilarious premise of a professional baseball player returning to his hometown to teach P.E. 

Rob McElhenney knew exactly what he was doing when he asked Ryan Reynolds to buy a soccer team with him. Welcome to Wrexham follows their journey of rehabilitating Wrexham AFC and shows just how fun it is to see your team finally start succeeding. 

Plenty of storylines in One Tree Hill make it a pure drama, but there’s enough about basketball that it also qualifies as a sports series. And it’s a very good series. 

O.J.: Made in America is technically categorized as a film (it won an Academy Award), but it aired in parts, so we’re counting it as a series. And no matter where you place it, the documentary about O.J. Simpson is too good to ignore. 

Kingdom is another series that pulls people in with its great storylines and teaches them a little bit about something they might be unfamiliar with. This time, it's mixed martial arts. There are a lot of beautiful sports beyond what’s super popular in America, and one is MMA. 

There’s a reason American Ninja Warrior has been on for over a decade. The reality series is wildly inspiring and always displays true feats of human achievement. The series might never end. 

The life of a professional athlete after retirement is a topic not many want to broach, but Ballers did so in a funny way. With Dwayne Johnson, John David Washington, and HBO involved, there was no way this series could’ve been bad.