Member-only story
Balancing Act: The Evolution of Sports Documentaries from Journalism to Propaganda
The rise of curated narratives and the unfortunate decline of investigative journalism in the way we consume sports content
This week I watched the latest iteration in Netflix’s Untold sports documentary series. This production was called “Swamp Kings” and attempted to tell the story of the brief, tumultuous, and successful era of the Florida Gators football team under Urban Meyer. I was expecting many things out of this documentary, some of which it delivered (the evolution of Brandon Spikes, the rise of Tim Tebow and Tebowmania, and the obsessive nature of Urban Meyer) and some of which it didn’t deliver (no mention of Cam Newton leaving the team, no mention of the now infamous Aaron Hernandez story, and the portrayal of quarterback Chris Leak as a sort of hindrance).
The tone and stories told ultimately felt like a bit of a puff piece for Urban Meyer and to a lesser extent Tim Tebow. Meyer, as you might recall, was an utter disaster in the NFL lasting only 13 games as the coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars in one of the most bizarre coaching rides you may ever see in professional sports. Meyer, if nothing else, was a man in need of some good PR and it seems that this documentary aimed to deliver that. He is not the first person to try and seek some redemption through modern…