Netflix is doing something special when it comes to sports. Instead of covering the events themselves, which other channels are already doing, the company is focusing on the drama and the personal stories behind the names. Shows like Break Point, which covers the cutthroat tennis world, are making tennis players like Taylor Fritz recognizable to the general public. It’s something he didn’t expect.
The streaming service made the decision to go after sports that weren’t necessarily as popular as the so-called big four: the MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL. For example, Formula One racing saw a huge boost in the sport after the Netflix show Formula 1: Drive to Survive.
They did the same thing with Break Point, showing the players behind the scenes as they prepare for matches and face the challenges of being professional athletes. They also did it with Full Swing, a docu series about professional golf. Athletes who were popular in their own spheres are now much easier to recognize, but at the end of the day it’s great for the sport.
Let’s talk about Fritz. He’s the ATP’s No. 5 player, a position that usually won’t get you attention beyond fans of the sport. After he was featured on the show, he said, things changed. He recently told People about it:
“I think it’s great that there are more people coming to tennis,” Fritz said, noting that the show is creating new tennis fanatics. He gets recognized in the street now too, something that’s never happened to him before.
“I’ve noticed in the U.S. sometimes people will maybe recognize me and I can tell they’re not a tennis fan. They don’t recognize me as a tennis player. They recognize me as the person that was on the show.”
That just shows the constant evolution of the sport, he said.
“It just shows me that someone that probably didn’t know anything about tennis might now be converted into a tennis fan.” It’s that interest and the new fans that fulfilled his “biggest hope” for the show.
Tennis playing at that level is not for the faint of heart. There’s are almost 2,000 pro tennis players on the ATP tour, and as Fritz told The New York Times: “It’s tough to be happy in tennis, because every single week everyone loses but one person.”
While the show didn’t crack the top ten in its first week, it still pulled in 4.14 million viewers.
Break Point is streaming on Netflix.