I’m George - I’ve been TDA’s sports journalist since May. You may know me from the TDA Sport newsletter (if you don’t it might be time to subscribe, which you can do here) or from one of the videos Billi has forced me to do.

Today, I’m talking about the innovative storytelling force reshaping the sports industry: streaming services. It’s a good day to dive into this topic - as this newsletter goes out, 58-year-old Mike Tyson and 27-year-old YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul are preparing to meet for a highly anticipated bout. Whether you hate, love, or don’t care about boxing (and I’m sure that’s a lot of you), the fact that it’s the first fight to be streamed globally on Netflix is enough to read a bit more into.

Of course, investment in sport by major streaming services is not new. Docuseries like The Last Dance, Simone Biles Rising, and, most notably, Drive to Survive are all examples of Netflix's successful investment in sports stories. It’s not just streamers who benefit - a viral series can often change the popularity (not just how many people are bought in, but who those people are) of a sport, as is the case with Formula 1’s audience after a few seasons of D2S.

Readers, start your engines.

The unlikely pairing of Jake Paul and Mike Tyson is an example of a broader shift in how sports content is created, consumed, and monetised in the digital age.

For the non-boxing fan, many factors make this fight unique. Firstly, it’s hard to look past the colossal personalities of Tyson and Paul. Tyson became a household name at only 20, as the world’s youngest-ever heavyweight champion. Paul is an influencer who once starred on the Disney channel and has amassed over 20 million subscribers on YouTube. Very different paths to the ring.

Then, there’s the promotion and broadcast of the fight. Traditionally, audiences have had to pay a specific fee (often called ‘Pay-Per-View’) to watch these types of heavyweight matches. But this one will be beamed into homes in over 190 countries via streaming giant Netflix. In Australia alone, there are 6.2 million Netflix subscribers. Worldwide, that figure balloons to over 280 million.

The global reach of streaming platforms provides sporting organisations with significant business opportunities. For example, the WWE (wrestling) signed an eye-watering 10-year, $US5 billion ($AU7.7 billion) live-streaming deal with Netflix in January.

These platforms are also resourced to produce high-quality documentary content to engage new audiences before, during and after the sport itself. For instance, in the lead-up to the Tyson v Paul fight, Netflix released a three-part doco series (Countdown: Paul vs Tyson), giving viewers a behind-the-scenes insight into the two personalities and their day-to-day preparation strategies for this mega-event. Paul has reportedly predicted that 25 million people will tune in to watch the fight, a number that would smash the current boxing viewership record of 4.6 million.

No series is a better example of the transformation of sports storytelling and fan engagement than Netflix's "Drive to Survive”, a fly-on-the-wall documentary-style series that takes fans into the world of Formula 1. Over six seasons, Netflix has gained unprecedented access to the inner workings of F1 teams and drivers - and brought many who would have never associated with racing along for the ride.

The show has lifted the lid on the array of characters within the sport, ranging from the once-lesser-known drivers further down the grid to team principals and engineers. As it turns out, every character in F1 has triumphs and tragedies along with their own compelling character arc - just like all of us.

The 20 drivers of F1 have now become mainstream celebrities in their own right, compared to a time before Drive to Survive when only the most successful drivers (e.g. Lewis Hamilton) transcended the sport to become household names and cultural figures.

Drive to Survive first aired on Netflix in 2019. A 2022 survey from Statista showed that 34% of F1 fans attributed their interest in the sport to the Netflix show. Drive to Survive’s relatability also transformed a previously male-dominated audience - women made up 8% of fans in 2017, but by 2022, the F1 reported that figure had risen to 40%.

The changing demographics of those who watch F1, triggered by the success of the Netflix series, has also changed the race schedule itself. F1 was, pre-Netflix, a predominantly-European product. After capturing the attention of the enormous (and lucrative) American market, three races are now taking place in the U.S. on the annual F1 schedule – Austin, Miami, and Vegas.

In 2022, a record-breaking 440,000 fans attended the U.S. GP in Austin - more than 40% up on 2018 attendance levels. The size of the TV rights deal followed - ESPN paid an estimated $75-90 million for the rights, up from what was once a $US5 million annual contract.

It’s not just F1 - “Full Swing”, a docuseries about professional golf made by the same producers (Box to Box Films), similarly changed who was watching the sport. A spokesperson from the PGA told Fast Company that 64% of Full Swing viewers were between the ages of 25 and 54 - a significantly younger demographic than professional golf’s typical audience.

I want to go back to that idea of streaming services leaning into the notion of players as people, not just as athletes. It turns out we’re just as interested (in some cases, even more) in why the player is hungry to succeed on the field rather than the stats or figures that come out of the performance.

This phenomenon has been described as "the escalator effect” - a strategy where first-time fans are introduced to a sport through entertainment (like a compelling docuseries.) These shows draw on universal human narratives to transform casual viewers into passionate supporters.

As University of Iowa professor Travis Vogan told CNN, these documentaries serve a clear commercial purpose: "They're trying to sell us stuff. That's the point. They're promoting these organisations through human drama." This strategy has proven remarkably effective, creating a virtuous cycle where emotional investment leads to technical appreciation and, ultimately, financial investment in the sport. They’ll sometimes even purchase merchandise or tickets to live events. Someone who was totally lost to a sport can, in the space of one excellent TV series, become a dollar-spending diehard.

While I’ve argued that modern sports documentaries are doing something innovative, the relationship between human interest storytelling and sports is nothing new.

As it says in my op-shop-acquired copy of the 1995 Esquire Book of Sports Writing by Greg Williams, "Sport suddenly seemed to be a method of revealing something about the times, something that… tapped into the culture through subject matter that was tangible and unsophisticated yet elicited passion and involved [audiences.]"

It’s an observation that holds up decades later - but I’m not sure Williams would have predicted we’d be watching Tyson v Paul on Netflix. Capable of producing our most beloved heroes and despised villains, sport will always be the greatest story machine.

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In this week's wrap of good news, we discuss the endangered sea turtle that's returned to the Gulf of Mexico, the new dog mayor, Dolly Parton's philanthropy and the free sanitary items in Victoria.