SBJ Media: Netflix’s ‘Untold’ series finds its groove

Well, I’m gutted after Georgia Tech lost Monday afternoon to Oklahoma in the NCAA baseball regionals. Extra innings and a walk-off home run for OU — not the exit I was expecting for my Jackets, who were the No. 2 team in the country. But the Sooners had two gutsy, come-from-behind wins Sunday and Monday to complete the upset. Tip of the cap to the underdogs.

That’s probably it for me on watching any more Road to Omaha action for a bit.

Netflix is celebrating the five-year anniversary of its “Untold” series of sports documentaries, with a larger domestic roster of docs and an expansion into Netflix territories like the U.K.

Among the key creators of the series from a production standpoint have been Howard Owens (Propagate Content) and film runners Chapman Way and Maclain Way (Stardust Frames). All are big sports fans, and each saw “Untold” as filling in some of the gaps left by an unsteady “30 for 30” calendar from ESPN.

“We saw that there was an opening in sports storytelling,” said Owens, whose work prior to Netflix included the “LFG” doc for HBO on the USWNT’s fight for equal pay. “We thought that ‘30 for 30’ had the light dimmed after Bill Simmons left ESPN. It felt they started to come out sporadically and the quality had seemed to kind of ebb a little.”

For the Way brothers, who had won Primetime Emmys as directors of the “Wild Wild Country” doc, the start to “Untold” was a time to grow beyond directorial roots.

“I really look back on that time, and it’s where we really learned how to produce and become good producers,” said Maclain Way, whose history with Netflix goes back to 2014, when it bought “The Battered Bastards of Baseball” from the brothers at Sundance as one of the streamer’s first sports docs. “For Chap and I, we knew that if we put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into those first early seasons, we might be able to make something that really defines itself and is long lasting.”

Chapman Way wanted to bring “something that was cinematically a little bit more elevated, a little bit more immersive” when he was creating the series for Netflix.

Give the audience what they want

The assignment for the Ways and Owens was creating something for Netflix that appealed not just to sports diehards but also to those who may have never been to sporting events.

“We’re really trying to keep both audiences in mind when we make these,” said Chapman Way.

One of the first ideas that brought the trio together was telling the story of the “Malice at the Palace,” the 2004 fight between the Pistons and Pacers that involved fans.

“Everyone told us, ‘Oh, we can’t do this. The NBA will never give you [permission]. It can’t be done.’ And I think that got us really excited,” Chapman Way said.

That led the creators to stories involving headline-grabbing central characters like Johnny Manziel, Manti Te’o, Tim Donaghy, Victor Conte, the AND1 shoe company, Jake Paul, Steve McNair, Connor Stalions and Brett Favre.

Globe trotting

When “Untold” started, the Way brothers wouldn’t have guessed that they’d be pushing 30 films — and they certainly wouldn’t have predicted the franchise would break into other markets. That includes a trio of soccer-related docs for the U.K. audience timed around the upcoming FIFA World Cup.

“Chap and I are kids from Southern California. We know what’s interesting to us, but it’s incredibly fun to partner with people from Britain or people from Australia or wherever we’re doing these things,” said Maclain Way. “It just feels fun to be able to tap into those expertise and kind of keep growing the format.”

“Adrenaline.”

That’s what Tim Legler, who’s been with ESPN since 2000, says he’s feeling ahead of his first NBA Finals call Wednesday night.

When I chatted with Legler on Monday, he was driving to the Philadelphia airport to catch his flight to San Antonio, and you could feel the energy coming through the phone after a few extra days off at home following the Knicks’ sweep of the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals.

“I’m so dialed in, man,” he said.

Legler called getting into a groove with a three-man booth the biggest learning curve of the season — especially as ESPN had fewer games in Year 1 of a new media-rights pact. For this new booth, that meant a period where they had one game in a six-week stretch.

“That kind of disrupted the rhythm,” he said. “We didn’t really get that ... until you got like later into March. Then into the playoffs, we’ve been together the entire time, and now we really feel like we’ve hit our stride.”

That rhythm isn’t something that can be replicated at a table talk, Legler said. “You can only do it by calling games,” he added. “You have to learn each other’s rhythm and how they talk. ... You’ve got to be more patient.”

Legler also sees this Knicks-Spurs series as having more national cachet after the Knicks’ recent run. It’s definitely a more “compelling” matchup than the last time the teams met in the 1999 NBA Finals (which drew 16 million viewers for that five-game set on NBC).

“What had to happen was somebody from the Eastern Conference not only had to just win the conference in convincing fashion but had to play at an elite level,” he said. “If you went back before the playoffs started, or maybe even a few weeks before that, I think the general idea was whoever wins the West is your NBA champion. I think a lot of people thought that way. The Knicks have changed that narrative.”

And while Mike Breen has been the Knicks’ lead play-by-play announcer since 2004, Legler has no doubt Breen will be the consummate professional in calling these NBA Finals.

“Breen has the same amount of enthusiasm on the call for the opponents that are playing the Knicks as he does the Knicks,” Legler said. “I’m a huge Washington Commanders fan. That’s my one team I love more than anything. It’d be hard for me to be an analyst calling a Commanders game and just be completely unbiased. So the fact that he’s able to do that [with the Knicks] is incredible.”

The PGA Tour over the weekend posted a new job that gives insight into its changing media plans, writes my SBJ colleague Josh Carpenter: senior vice president of media strategy, which defines and executes the tour’s “long-term media distribution strategy, with a primary focus on domestic rights,” according to the posting.

EVP/Media Norb Gambuzza also posted the role, which would likely report into him. The job posting also said the position would lead the PGA Tour’s approach to rights packaging, deal structuring and negotiation of distribution agreements.

The new role comes as the PGA Tour is set to go through significant change on the media side. With the planned tweaks to its schedule and structure in 2028, there likely will also need to be significant change to its existing media deals, which are set to run through 2030. In addition to this position, the tour has posted an opening for the head of business development at PGA Tour Studios. These roles, among others, come after the tour laid off 4% of its staff in April.

Betting, podcasts and social media are major factors when it comes to keeping sports fans more engaged with live events, notes SBJ research director David Broughton, who got an early look at a new Sports IQ study from National Research Group (NRG).

The study of 12,500 sports fans examines, among other things, the impact that various “beyond the broadcast” behaviors have on live sports viewership. For example, fans who bet on sports watch 72 more minutes of live sports per week than fans who don’t bet.

Activities that were also contributing over an hour of extra viewership per week included listening to podcasts and following athletes or teams on social media.

ESPN continued its string of NCAA viewership wins with the men’s and women’s lacrosse championships over Memorial Day weekend. Last Monday’s men’s title game, which saw Princeton defeat Notre Dame, averaged 778,000 viewers, which is the best for a men’s championship in the sport in 19 years (dating back to Duke-Johns Hopkins at 855,000 in 2007). That’s up big from 567,000 for Cornell-Maryland last year. Meanwhile, on May 24, ESPN drew 470,000 for Northwestern-North Carolina in the women’s championship, marking a record audience for the title game. For the complete NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Tournament, ESPN networks saw the best average in 13 years with 176,000 viewers. The women’s event averaged 102,000 viewers, up 72% from last year.

The audience for Saturday night’s Spurs-Thunder Game 7 on NBC isn’t in yet (expect that late on Tuesday afternoon), but Thursday’s Thunder-Spurs Game 6 drew 11.6 million viewers on the broadcast network, marking the best Game 6 for an NBA conference finals (East or West) since 2002, when the Lakers played the Kings on NBC. Even before Game 7, Spurs-Thunder was delivering the best audience for a WCF since that Lakers-Kings series in 2002.

Per internal data from the Women’s Sports Network (WSN) FAST channel, the audience for Women’s Elite Rugby is seeing a 10x increase this season to date, and it has more than doubled from Week 1 to Week 3. The internal data notes that over 100,000 “viewers” watched in Week 3. A “viewer” in this case would be considered as a “session,” or anytime a user watches the program. WSN’s primary distribution partners are Amazon, Roku and LG.

The NBA and NHL are both getting serious about the local media business, making moves to address matters at the league HQs. The NBA has brought over Matt Volk from NESN/SportsNet Pittsburgh to start a new group dedicated to the issue (for NBA and WNBA teams). A number of NBA teams are looking for local solutions for next season, and the league is expected to launch a national package of local games for the 2027-28 season. Meanwhile, as my colleague Alex Silverman noted late last week, the NHL made a couple of reorganization moves aimed at addressing local issues. First, David Proper will focus on media rights, distribution and scheduling as chief media officer, as well as overseeing efforts to build a centralized entity to service NHL clubs most affected by the recent RSN dislocations. In addition, Steve Mayer will be adding oversight of a new initiative intended to support teams with NHL-operated local game production.

Around 2 million U.S. homes are affected by DirecTV dropping a number of local Scripps channels, sources tell SBJ. The dispute won’t affect Scripps-owned Ion, which is a national network that carries NWSL and WNBA games. The biggest impact could come Tuesday night in Las Vegas, which is one of the local markets affected by this carriage dispute. That Scripps-owned ABC affiliate in Vegas is supposed to carry Game 1 of the Golden Knights-Hurricanes Stanley Cup Final. Not good timing for Vegas fans. Scripps Sports doesn’t have local rights to any MLB teams.

Looks like someone at Oklahoma Gas and Electric wasn’t happy Saturday that ESPN pinned some technical difficulties during the Women’s College World Series on the energy provider. OG&E took to social media to defend itself, putting the blame back on ESPN. Regardless, a power outage wasn’t keeping Holly Rowe down. The ESPN softball stalwart took to Instagram Live to give commentary while the TV feed was being fixed.

• My colleague Chris Smith profiles Fox Sports CEO and Executive Producer Eric Shanks in this week’s magazine cover story ahead one of the crowning achievements of his career: the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
• On the latest SBJ Sports Media Podcast, Josh Carpenter and I dig into the Knicks’ return to the NBA Finals and what it means for the league and ESPN. I also interview Landon Donovan and Tim Howard ahead of the FIFA World Cup.
• The Premier League drew its second-best season average on record during the 2025-26 campaign, with NBC and USA Network averaging 535,000 viewers. That’s behind only 2023-24.
• In the latest SBJ Marketing newsletter, Terry Lefton shares data from a recent eMarketer report showing the dominance of sports when it comes to TV ad dollars.
• LIV Golf dropped a handful of premium streaming features around its South Korea event as the league continues to evaluate its future, notes Carpenter.
• The PGA Tour is the latest property to work with Recast, a fintech solution for global streaming distribution, to broaden its reach into regions where it doesn’t have rights deals, writes SBJ’s Joe Lemire.