The Case for More Sports Fiction
I enjoy watching sports, and I enjoy writing. Only recently have I thought to merge the two.
Even in the big picture of entertainment, we seem to keep these two spectacles separate. People follow sports or literature, but rarely both.
But these two interests don’t have to remain apart, and if we dig a little deeper, we find rich and poignant stories come out of their unification.
There are plenty of sports films that have mass appeal, even among those who don’t watch sports. There classics like Field of Dreams and A League of Their Own; childhood favorites like The Sandlot and Space Jam; historical pieces like Moneyball or Foxcatcher; and even blockbusters like Rocky.
There are many classic authors who were fans of sports. Walt Whitman was a baseball reporter before he became a poet. Ernest Hemingway was a well-known enthusiast of a wide variety of sports, such as baseball and boxing. Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, Roald Dahl and Virginia Woolf all enjoyed playing sports.
Even William Shakespeare himself used tennis as a linchpin in one of the most powerful scenes in Henry V.
So why is there now a divide between sports and literature?
In my estimation, the reason for this is that we see sports as a niche interest; perhaps the most mainstream niche interest in our culture today, but a niche interest nonetheless.
We like to categorize our entertainment. This film has spaceships, so we label it “sci fi.” This book has gangsters, so it’s “crime.” This movie is about a Notre Dame football player, so we’ll make it “sports.”
While we do get new sports movies every year, they don’t have a mass market appeal. So films like Hoosiers, Remember the Titans, and Miracle are treasured by sports fans, they’re probably an afterthought for general movie-goers.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
I believe that not only can sports stories succeed, and can appeal to the general audience.
For one, I believe that niche interests can be woven into stories extremely effectively. Subjects far more obscure than sports have been put to the page and the screen and been well received.
Music is another segment of entertainment that could be considered “mainstream niche,” though I would argue that the music landscape is even more fractured than sports. In one calendar year from late 2024 to 2025, Hollywood released three musical biopics (A Complete Unknown, Bruce Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, and Song Sung Blue).
Did a film studio release Song Sung Blue to be targeted at the fans of a Neil Diamond tribute band? Of course not. They created a film to appeal to people who wanted to hear a moving story; it just happens that Thunder and Lightning were a unique vessel for that particular story to be told.
Shows like The Queens Gambit and The Bear stand out to people who aren’t chess players or chefs.
Adam McKay even wrote a script about the 2008 housing crisis, and made The Big Short in such a way that the general audience, not just economists, would understand it.
There are some very interesting stories in our media canon today that are about subjects that general audiences don’t care about, but are told so well that they are engaging and entertaining nonetheless.
Another reason that sports stories, especially top-quality ones, are too uncommon is that the sports sports have been tied to the “inspiration” plot. Most sports movies are about an underdog that achieves more than anyone thought them capable. This is true of some aforementioned films like Remember the Titans, Rudy, Rocky, and more.
This is something fans love while watching sports, but reducing the entire game to this one aspect is disingenuous and tiring. Even I, an avid sports fan, grow weary of the predictable plots in sports fiction.
We can have anti-heroes, tragic falls from grace, and complex villains just like any other genre. Part of what the sports media landscape needs are more interesting narratives and characters. There’s no reason to keep recycling the same plot over and over.
But I believe the biggest reason that sports and fiction can coexist is simple: sport is story.
Watch any NFL or NCAA college football game, and you will be introduced to countless story threads: this team hasn’t won on the road all year, and are trying to break the streak today; the two head coaches were on the same staff in 2010, and they are now friends-turned-competitors; the starting quarterback was just traded to his team five days ago, and will now try to win with a brand new playbook and group of teammates.
In fact, during halftime, the network will take the viewers to the studio where the panel will discuss the “storylines” around the league that week.
NBC unravels all kinds of story threads for the Olympics every two years, as illustrated by X user Randi Lawson.
We love seeing stories of an athlete faced with poverty, the death of a loved one, or political unrest, and against all odds, making their way to the world stage to compete for gold.
We love seeing Brock Purdy, the last pick in the NFL draft, play quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. Scott Foster captured the news cycle when the 36-year old accountant was called into action as the emergency goaltender for the Chicago Blackhawks, and finished the game after the previous two Blackhawks’ goalies left with an injury. Football fans everywhere felt moved when Jake Olson came onto the field to snap for a USC extra point, becoming the first football player in NCAA history who was completely blind.
I think it is a mistake to separate stories from sports because they are already woven together. Stories are part of why sports in the first place.
Now bringing sports into fiction is easier said than done, as is any artistic endeavor. But I, for one, have a few sports-related stories in various stages of revision.
I would like to change our perception of how sports can be used in literature. With addition of some good plot, setting, and characters, I believe that sports stories can be among the most entertaining works out there.
I would encourage any authors who are also sports fans to join me.
