Ashok Namboodiri
India is a land where cinema is culture and cricket is oxygen. We produce more films than any nation on earth, sell more streaming subscriptions than most markets combined, and our athletes today – from Neeraj Chopra to Harmanpreet Kaur – carry global resonance. So why, despite this cultural and commercial firepower, have we still not produced a sports documentary series that sits alongside The Last Dance, The Test, or Drive to Survive on the world stage?
Why don’t we have an iconic Indian sports narrative that becomes binge-culture, pop-culture and sporting folklore all at once? The short answer: India has made sports content, but not yet sports truth.
The problem isn’t talent; it’s access and attitude. India has produced a long list of sports features, biopics and OTT dramas – Lagaan to Dangal, MS Dhoni to 83, Sudani from Nigeria to Sarpatta Parambarai, Inside Edge to Cricket Fever. But these were cinematic retellings or controlled-access productions.
They were not raw, unfiltered, vérité-style journeys where cameras enter dressing rooms, egos clash, difficult conversations unfold, selections are debated, failures are dissected and the human behind the athlete emerges. The Last Dance worked because Michael Jordan let cameras in during conflict, not just celebration. Drive to Survive exploded because Toto Wolff and Christian Horner allowed their rivalry to fuel global fandom. The Test succeeded because Cricket Australia permitted unprecedented introspection after Sandpapergate.
In India, federations, franchises, and sometimes athletes themselves prefer curated narratives over honest ones.The instinct is to protect rather than reveal. Bollywood has scale but sports storytelling needs soul. Our film industry excels at heroism but sports storytelling demands something else – vulnerability.
The ability to show the self-doubt of a rising cricketer, the loneliness of an Olympic athlete, the politics of federations, the heartbreak of injuries, the paranoia of selections and the chaos inside dressing rooms – India is ready, but just not brave enough yet.
What could change this ? Radical Access to athletes would. The BCCI, IOA, AIFF, BFI, WFI, Hockey India – all it needs is one federation to break the mould and allow cameras to follow athletes without censorship. Of course, athlete cooperation is also essential. Imagine a series with Kohli speaking about mental health, Neeraj Chopra revealing his pressure loop, Harmanpreet inside the tactical huddle, U-19 cricketers chased throughout a season, Kabaddi raiders showing the bruises of a matchday or ISL coaches fighting over strategy.
In my view, we also need producers who understand sport. You don’t just film sport; you understand its soul. You know the rhythms, stories, tensions, and characters. Good sports storytelling needs journalism, not fiction. It needs credibility, not choreography. To create a global product, the spend must shift from “digital content cost” to franchise-building investment. And finally, season-on-season commitment. One-off specials won’t do it. You need continuity. Characters need to grow. Narratives need to evolve.
India is at a sporting inflection point – Women’s cricket has created its 1983 moment; Olympic sport has found new heroes; The IPL and WPL have created biggest-ever fandom. And newer sports – for India – like chess, shooting and athletics dominate global headlines. This is the moment to create India’s first global sports docu-series – the kind that changes culture, fandom, and childhood aspiration. We need a series that shows India not as a nation that watches sport, but a nation that lives it.
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