How Untold is Shining a Light on the Sporting World

One of the more distinctive features of the Untold documentaries is that they have delved into some of the lesser-known stories and controversies.

01:06 25 March 2023

The world of sports is one of the most enduringly captivating ones for humans across the world and throughout history if the carvings on Ancient Greek pottery are anything to go by. Even Heracles was an Olympic athlete which goes to show just how highly they were regarded.

While we all love their heights and achievements though, people on the whole are also drawn to their drama and controversies. It makes for incredible viewing, leading to a long history of sports documentaries retelling the most dramatic moments.

In recent years, the latest Untold series has been the latest to cover some of the more sordid parts of the sporting world. As one of the more interesting direction changes in Netflix's content strategy that we reported at https://www.supanet.com/tv-streaming/, it provides something entirely unique in the genre.

Pulling Stories From the Shadows

One of the more distinctive features of the Untold documentaries is that they have delved into some of the lesser-known stories and controversies in sports history. Where most directors tend to gravitate towards the largest and most prominent events, Untold instead brings up topics that, in many cases, had been all but forgotten before that episode was released. 

Source: Unsplash

A case in point is the saga of the Danbury Trashers, a minor professional ice hockey team that played in a now-defunct league. The team was created by James Galante, whose trash collection business gave the team their name, before single-handedly causing the team's downfall when his more shady business connections became known. The story is generally little-known outside of the hockey world and hasn't been that famous within it either.

Similarly unknown outside the specific sport is another of Untold's stories, that of the 1983 America's Cup, a yachting tournament historically held by a single team from New York. However, in 1983, an Australian team ended the winning streak that had endured for 132 years, which is not only the longest unbeaten run in yachting but quite possibly across all of sports as a whole. While this one did get covered in the 1992 movie Wind, the low interest on its page at https://www.imdb.com/ speaks to how forgotten the story had become only a few years later, let alone almost four decades.

In this way, Untold has become something of a historical record of these stories that are liable to be forgotten in the vast archives of the sporting world. It hasn't drawn from only older cases either; Untold: The Girl Who Didn't Exist is a relatively recent and bizarre case from the NFL, with the player at the center of the story only recently retiring.

What Are the Next Stories?

Currently, Netflix has made no announcement as to whether there is going to be a volume 3 of Untold made, although given how volume 2 only recently concluded that doesn't mean anything. The show received generally positive feedback, so the only question now is where it will go next.

One conspicuous aspect of the documentaries so far is that they have had a completely North American focus, with all the athletes drawn from predominantly American sports like football or ice hockey. Given that Netflix is fundamentally a global institution at this point, it seems only natural that globally popular sports would start to appear.

Source: Unsplash

The first stop is most likely to be soccer. By any metric, across the world, it is easily the number one sport. It tops out viewing numbers and global revenue, and it is the main option across sports betting sites. If the popularity of sports betting is anything to go by, betting comparison sites like https://www.sbo.net/ show the sheer number of options that bettors have when they want to get more involved with the soccer they love to watch. The market is so competitive that most bookmakers offer free bets and bonuses to encourage users to choose their sites.

Soccer has an endless number of stories that could be told, enough to fill an entire volume with names like Pele, teams like Leicester City, or even the fact that the original World Cup was stolen. While many of the largest stories like Maradona's Hand of God have been discussed to death, so many of these lesser-known events come almost pre-written.

Beyond that, sports like golf, athletics, or cricket each have incredible stories waiting to be brought into the public eye. It remains to be seen if Netflix does end up renewing the series for another volume but it would be a shame to lose such a prominent outlet if it doesn't.