Picture: Netflix
Another sports docu-series has come to a premature end at Netflix, according to reports. The Sports Business Journal is reporting that sources say additional seasons have been benched with Netflix declining to comment.
The news isn’t entirely surprising, given that season 2 picked up a swift season 2 renewal announcement and given that the NBA began its new season in late October, and we’ve yet to spot anyone working on the show or seen any reporting that cameras are following select athletes, the confirmation confirms what many had already suspected.
Omaha Productions, James’ SpringHill Co., and Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground were executive producers on the show.
Viewership numbers are likely behind the decision not to bring the show back for any further seasons. The Netflix Engagement Report suggests the show’s first season picked up 4.6 million views during its first period of availability, from July to December 2024, and dropped to just 1 million views in the first half of 2025. The show’s first season didn’t appear in the weekly top 10s Netflix released, and the same happened for season 2.
To put that number into perspective, Quarterback picked up 12.7M views in its opening period, Receiver picked up 7.5M, and season 7 of F1: Drive to Survive picked up 10.4M.
FlixPatrol numbers also suggest viewership for the show collapsed. Season 1 featured in the daily top 10s in 20 countries, including the United States, where it ranked for eight days. Following the release of season 2, the show failed to show up in a single region’s top 10.
This viewership drop is a drum that a friend of What’s on Netflix, The Entertainment Strategy Guy, has long been beating. On November 19th, he noted that the series had failed to rank in more US-specific data companies, such as Luminate, Nielsen, or Samba.
Finally, the YouTube trailer, which provides a small indication of interest, dropped from 1.9M views for the first season to 574k for season 2.
Over the past few years, sports-adjacent documentary series experienced a huge boom and golden era on Netflix, though increasingly, viewership has not supported shows, leading to a pullback over the past year, and many shows, like its rugby and tennis series, were cut short. Some are still working, though, such as Formula 1: Drive to Survive, which will return in 2026 with season 8, and Full Swing is also set to return.
We’ve seen this many times with divisions within Netflix: when they have a big hit or want to explore a new genre or area (such as animation in the late 2010s or games in the early 2020s), they throw a LOT at the wall and hope some of it sticks. When the strategy doesn’t work (i.e., demand doesn’t meet oversupply), Netflix has to decide to pivot, axe shows, and shift strategies.
This joins the growing list of Netflix cancellations for 2025, and we suspect there’ll be a few more by the end of the year.
Are you disappointed that Netflix isn’t bringing back Starting 5 for future seasons? Let us know in the comments.
