15 Best Sports TV Shows to Watch on Netflix Right Now

From its streaming beginnings as a humble purveyor of movies and TV dramas made by other companies, Netflix has broadened its repertoire exponentially over the past decade, especially when it comes to sports content. Besides exclusively live-broadcasting 2025’s most coveted boxing event, the streaming giant now has an array of sports shows that are the envy of its competitors.

Netflix’s best sports documentaries lead the field, covering everything from little-league football to the scandalous corruption behind FIFA’s decision to have Qatar host the 2022 World Cup. We get the inside track on elite athletes at the very top of their game, and emotional recollections of historical sporting moments from fans and participants alike.

Sports shows on the platform aren’t just fly-on-the-wall insights and historical documents, however. There are plenty of great scripted sports series on Netflix, too, including at least one of the best sports comedy TV shows ever made.

This list is a winning combination of both entertaining scripted dramas and compelling documentaries about the sports we love. The top two, in particular, are undisputed small-screen champions of their respective fields, with little to choose between them.

15

Surviving Summer

2022–2023

There are plenty of shows out there for surfing enthusiasts to enjoy, but not many of them have a deftly written script to back up their spectacular shots of wetsuit-clad boarders riding the waves. Surviving Summer was filmed on location in Australia, and features some of the country’s prime surfing spots.

Its title is actually a play on words that references protagonist Summer Torres, a teenager from New York who finds herself sent to the other side of the world as a result of bad behavior. What she finds there is a surfer’s paradise, and a group of locals more than willing to teach her.

14

Break Point

2023–2024

This big-money British documentary project made in conjunction with the governing bodies of global tennis doesn’t always land inside the chalk, but it still provides fascinating behind-the-scenes insights into the professional lives of many of the world’s top players. Loudmouth Australian Nick Kyrgios predictably proves to be the main star of the show, but he’s far from alone.

The so-called “Big Three” of men’s tennis, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer, are all notable by their absence from Break Point, as are current superstars, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. In fact, Aryna Sabalenka is the only grand slam winner to feature in the documentary. Nevertheless, it provides us with unprecedented access to the game’s elite athletes.

13

The Comeback: 2004 Boston Red Sox

2024

The Comeback tells the story of how the Boston Red Sox finally put the Curse of the Bambino to rest in 2004, ending a 76-year period without winning baseball’s World Series. The documentary presents its story from the perspective of an entire sport-mad city desperate to break the strangest hoodoo in the history of America’s pastime.

We get a glimpse of what it meant not only to the players involved, but the whole Red Sox franchise and thousands of proud Bostonians to get their hands on the Commissioner’s Trophy at long last. This show doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it does an admirable job of conveying the meaning behind this momentous event.

12

Running Point

2025–Present

A sports sitcom unlike any other, Running Point primarily centers on characters who run a franchise rather than play for or coach it. You could argue that it’s basketball’s answer to Ted Lasso, except that Kate Hudson’s protagonist Isla Gordon is the show’s equivalent to Rebecca Welton.

Hudson shines in her best performance for years, while Running Point’s jokes land in the basket more often than not. The sitcom is hardly on a par with the likes of Ted Lasso or Crave’s hockey-based comedy series, Shoresy, but it certainly adds plenty of laughs to the scoreboard.

11

We Are: The Brooklyn Saints

2021

Fans of The CW’s football drama All American will enjoy this spirited and profoundly empathetic look at one season of a youth program that gets inner-city Brooklyn youths off the streets and onto the field. We Are: The Brooklyn Saints doesn’t always tell its story in the most focused manner, yet it frequently inspires while tugging at our heartstrings.

This documentary proves that sport isn’t all about reaching an elite level in your field. It’s fundamentally about having fun expending energy, being part of a team, and learning what it takes to lose as well as win in life. For the youngsters in We Are: The Brooklyn Saints, just having the chance to play together makes all the difference.

10

Twenty-Five Twenty-One

2022

A romantic K-drama with a sporting twist, Twenty-Five Twenty-One follows the fortunes of a high-school fencer and a sports reporter whose lives are both transformed by the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. One of the most successful TV shows in Korean history, it made a major star out of Kim Tae-ri.

Twenty-Five Twenty-One’s apparent cliffhanger ending and the controversy surrounding the initial age of one of its protagonists have given rise to criticisms of the show from certain quarters, but there’s ultimately no doubting its credentials as a winning period drama. Aside from its romantic central storyline, the show has likely inspired an interest in fencing among countless viewers.

9

Simone Biles Rising

2024

The Netflix original documentary Simone Biles Rising is an especially emotional watch in light of the athlete’s extraordinary performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics, just a month after its release. It explores the toll Biles’ dedication to her sport has taken on her mental health, as well as placing her in the broader historical context of elite gymnastics.

In addition to its titular star, the show focuses its lens on the impact of Nadia Comăneci when she arrived on the scene in the mid-1970s. The physical and psychological pressures under which professional gymnasts are placed from a remarkably young age are unmatched by any other sport, and this documentary highlights the effects of these pressures with piercing clarity.

8

FIFA Uncovered

2022

One of the best TV shows about the FIFA World Cup is unfortunately a damning indictment of the body governing global soccer. While many of the revelations in this documentary have been public knowledge for a long time, it pieces together a picture of institutional corruption on a grand scale.

Among the most amazing aspects of the series is the brazen defiance with which some of those implicated in the scandal surrounding FIFA awarding hosting rights to Qatar for the 2022 World Cup speak on camera. You simply have to see it to believe it.

7

Sanctuary

2023

This powerful underdog story of a wayward young hoodlum being transformed into a sumo wrestling champion is the definitive drama for newcomers to the Japanese martial art. It’s a tale of hard knocks, as Kiyoshi Oze has to overcome genuine adversity at every turn.

Aside from Sanctuary’s affecting character journey, the show nails its gripping fight sequences. Anyone with only a passing interest in the art of sumo will very likely be completely hooked by the end of the miniseries.

6

Sunderland ‘Til I Die

2018–2024

It was this stirring documentary that first got Welcome to Wrexham’s Rob McElhaney into British football, inspiring him to buy the club he now owns with Ryan Reynolds. Sunderland ‘Til I Die is a tale of woe told primarily from the perspective of its team’s fans, whose dedication to their second division outfit is as moving as it is impressive.

The documentary gets more uplifting as it goes on, as Sunderland A.F.C.’s fortunes slowly begin to change (the team is now finally back in the Premier League after a nine-year absence). But those who fill Sunderland’s enormous 48,000-seater stadium week-in-week-out, come rain or shine, are unquestionably the real heroes of this story.