Not Every Team Deserves a Netflix Sports Documentary
Last season the Boston Red Sox were the picture of mediocrity, finishing 81-81, dead middle of the American League East Division, and failing to make the playoffs. The Red Sox were expected to be meh, and they were. So my expectations for The Clubhouse: A Year With the Red Sox, an eight-episode docuseries released by Netflix Inc. in April, were low. The idea of spending eight hours rehashing their humdrum season sounded like a chore, even for this Sox fan.
At first glance, The Clubhouse seemed like another unnecessary sports doc. Since the breakout success of Formula 1: Drive to Survive and The Last Dance, both of which helped fill the void when most live sports were canceled during the early days of the pandemic, programmers have been clamoring for unscripted sports series. At the start of 2019, according to data from Ampere Analysis, sports accounted for 3% of all newly commissioned documentaries, both upcoming and released. So far in the second quarter of this year, that share is 12%.
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