The 10 Greatest Sports TV Shows of All Time, Ranked

Dan Fogelman and Rick Singer’s drama, about the first woman to play Major League Baseball, should have been a star-making vehicle for Kylie Bunbury as screwball-throwing Ginny Baker, as well as a career-pivoting turn for a never-better Mark-Paul Gosselaar as wise, bearded catcher Mike Lawson. But Fox couldn’t get eyeballs on Pitch, which was smart, topical and capitalized on the participation of MLB to look fully authentic without feeling overly sanitized. The series’ hasty cancellation was a tremendous disappointment, but it saved the creative team from having to resolve a cliffhanger that felt like it could go wrong in a dozen different ways. For lists like this, we agree with Neil Young that it’s better to burn out than to fade away.

Bursting onto the scene in a hail of fastballs and fuck-yous, washed-up pitcher Kenny Powers was a noxious specimen even by the standards of TV’s antihero boom: forthrightly offensive, destructively entitled, so arrogant his go-to car listening was his own voice on a series of inspirational cassette tapes. But leave it to Danny McBride, chronicler par excellence of a particularly American strain of boorish machismo, to find both the twisted humor and jagged pathos in the character’s ill-advised efforts to recapture some of his former glory — often with the help of his beleaguered superfan, Stevie (an incredible Steve Little), or to the exasperation of his on-off love, April (Katy Mixon), and brother, Dustin (John Hawkes). The HBO comedy never pulled its punches over its four wild and hilarious seasons, taking every opportunity to send Kenny off the rails yet again. But it never lost sight of Kenny’s strange humanity, either. 

Amid a glut of streaming shows unnecessarily expanding on well-loved films, Will Graham and Abbi Jacobson’s baseball dramedy stood out for the high-difficulty balance it struck between honoring Penny Marshall’s 1992 movie and transforming it into something radically fresh. By making the film’s queer subtext text (most notably in the breathtaking romance between Jacobson’s Carson and D’Arcy Carden’s Greta) and highlighting the plight of Black female players via Chanté Adams’ Max, this new take turned a traditionally male-driven sport into a home for women who didn’t quite feel at home anywhere else. Much like the Rockford Peaches, the dramedy’s lifespan turned out to be short; Amazon axed it after just one season. But if anyone could understand the outsize impact of a brief moment in the sun, it was this show. “They get to tell us how long this lasts,” Greta says of the league. “They don’t get to tell us whether or not this is real.”

Look, ESPN has done extensive Wrestlemania coverage for years, so let’s not debate whether or not professional wrestling is a sport. There are winners and losers, and ample athleticism is required in addition to acting ability. This was more-than-capably illustrated in Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch’s Netflix dramedy, which ran three seasons, was renewed for a fourth and was truncated frustratingly by the pandemic. GLOW was filled with laughter-inducing ’80s nostalgia, nailing the campy costumes, big hair and well-curated soundtrack. The wrestling matches were creatively choreographed and amusingly executed. For all the laughs, though, GLOW thrived most as a character piece that started with stars Alison Brie and breakout Betty Gilpin but extended to a remarkable and deep wrestling troupe featuring the likes of Gayle Rankin, Sydelle Noel, Kate Nash, Sunita Mani, Ellen Wong, Kia Stevens and Britney Young, plus Marc Maron and Chris Lowell.

While certain aspects of CBS’ Bruce Paltrow-created drama, about a former NBA player (Ken Howard) forced by injuries to become the basketball coach at an inner-city high school, are dated, The White Shadow was extremely smart about acknowledging and avoiding the most predictable white-savior stereotypes. The series was cleverly issue-oriented and, if anything, presaged classic ’80s dramas like Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere, which shouldn’t be surprising given the involvement of writers including Steve Bochco, John Falsey, Joshua Brand, Marshall Herskovitz and John Masius. The approach to racial prejudice, urban violence, substance abuse and sexuality was perceptive, for the late ’70s or for today, and the basketball action was actually solid. Howard was a gruff and commanding lead, and the young crew who filled out his basketball team was talented, spawning an astonishing number of future TV and film directors, including Kevin Hooks, Thomas Carter and Timothy Van Patten. If this list were “Most Influential Sports TV Shows,” The White Shadow would probably take the top spot.

Don’t be fooled by that oddly grim title. Survivor’s Remorse goes down as smooth as a ball hitting nothing but net — something that, amusingly, we almost never see in the show itself. Instead, the LeBron James-produced comedy is concerned with the off-court life of Cam Calloway (Jessie T. Usher), whose rising star within the NBA catapults him and his working-class family into a new world of wealth, fame and the problems that come with them. Blessed with an outrageously charismatic ensemble, including RonReaco Lee, Tichina Arnolds, Mike Epps and the late Erica Ash, the series often inspired favorable comparisons to Entourage or Ballers for its breezy tone. But where those shows tended to avoid getting too heavy, Mike O’Malley’s underseen gem tackled thorny issues like race, class and sexuality with ambition, humor and no fear whatsoever — yielding four seasons as sneakily brilliant as they were just plain fun. 

Revisiting this ABC dramedy a quarter century later, the second thing you’ll probably notice is how jarring that first-season laugh track is. The first thing you’re likely to notice about Aaron Sorkin’s first show (and, many fans will argue, still his best) is how fresh and relevant it still feels otherwise. While you don’t have to know your Stanley Cups from your World Cups to appreciate its charms — among them a whip-smart ensemble including Josh Charles, Joshua Malina and the late Robert Guillaume; rapid-fire dialogue so precise you could set a metronome to it; and interpersonal drama juicy enough that we’re still bemoaning the non-resolution to Dana and Casey’s will-they-won’t-they years later — its heart lies in how seriously it takes its characters’ passion for sport and their earnest journalistic dedication to doing right by it. 

Jared Keeso’s Letterkenny did well by hockey, but nobody would have called it a “sports show,” per se. Then, rather than building a spinoff around Reilly (Dylan Playfair) and Jonesy (Andrew Herr), that series’ established and semi-dimensionalized hockey players, Keeso opted to give foul-mouthed Shoresy (Keeso) — whose face was never seen on Letterkenny — his own show. It was a strange idea, but it has ultimately proven to be brilliant. Shoresy has the same love of fast-talking, jargon-heavy verbosity as Letterkenny, but the comedy takes an unexpectedly nuanced look at hockey, the fans who live for it and the athletes who can’t quit it. Seeso’s ability to trace his character from trash-talking reprobate to oddly mature romantic lead is impressive, but Shoresy has built a wacky ensemble around him, avoiding testosterone overload by focusing on Sudbury Bulldogs owner and general manager Nat (Tasya Teles), sidekicks Miigwan (Keilani Elizabeth Rose) and Ziigwan (Blair Lamora), and journalist Laura (Camille Sullivan), who has gradually made an honest man of our protagonist. 

Like Ted Lasso, IFC’s Brockmire began as a comic short — Brockmire for Funny or Die, Ted Lasso for NBC Sports — about a character right on the edge of caricature and found a way to build a fully realized world in which that character could grow and thrive. Unlike Ted Lasso, Joel Church-Cooper’s series managed to keep its protagonist evolving without sacrificing its uncouth, playfully gasp-inducing dialogue at the altar of schmaltz. Key to that achievement was Hank Azaria’s central performance, which starts with an amalgamated impression of a dozen beloved sportscasters and runs that dulcet love of baseball through one of the dirtiest, most unhinged minds in TV history. For all that rawness, Azaria still retains enough heart for Jim Brockmire to share real emotions with foils played perfectly by the likes of Amanda Peet, Tyrel Jackson Williams and Tawny Newsome. The series benefitted from an encyclopedic knowledge of and passion for America’s national pastime, but each of its four seasons was also packed with laughs, top-notch guest stars and dialogue that shouldn’t be repeated in mature company.

Every once in a while, you’ll hear somebody — usually in an attempt to sway a sports-phobic potential viewer — claiming that Friday Night Lights isn’t really about football. Tell that to the pilot, written and directed by Peter Berg and cramming and paraphrasing large chunks of Buzz Bissinger’s 1990 book (which was definitely about both football and a small Texas town) into a perfect hour of TV. Tell that to the episode “Mud Bowl,” a series highlight dominated by gridiron action. Tell that to Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and the rosters of the Dillon Panthers and then the East Dillon Lions and then to Buddy Garrity (Brad Leland) and the entire fictional community of Dillon, Texas, living for each week’s game. Friday Night Lights is all about football. It just happens to also be one of TV’s greatest teen dramas; a portrait of possibly TV’s greatest marriage, between Coach and Mrs. Coach (Connie Britton); and an impeccable examination of faith and blue-collar life made for a medium that generally shies away from religion and socioeconomic critique. Friday Night Lights is thrilling, heartbreaking, hilarious and — as illustrated by the regular reinventions and constant rejuvenations of its young cast — one of the most resilient shows ever made.