Inside Onside: Major League Soccer with Paul Martin

Two years into its game-changing ten-year pact with Major League Soccer (MLS), Apple TV+ continues to scale up its slate of sports documentaries. In Onside: Major League Soccer, which premiered last week, Apple TV+ subscribers are taken for an insider’s tour of the American soccer league, which has been surging in popularity on the heels of the likes of David Beckham and Lionel Messi moving stateside. The eight-part series hails from Box To Box Films, the outfit behind Senna, Amy, Formula 1: Drive to Survive and more. Paul Martin, who helms Box To Box alongside James Gay-Rees and serves as executive producer on Onside: Major League Soccer, tells TV Real Weekly about securing access to some of the leading athletes and coaches in the MLS and the continued opportunities in the sports documentaries space.

TV REAL: How did Onside: Major League Soccer come about?
MARTIN: We have a relationship with MLS and had been talking for a while about doing a project like this. When they did their ten-year deal with Apple, it suddenly made sense for everybody. We have a very good creative relationship with Apple. They were fans of previous shows that we’d done. The coming together of Apple and MLS made the potential to do a show like this a reality and much simpler; you had one rights holder and one broadcaster. It made the access and the reason why so much easier. We’re huge soccer fans across the company. Football is our sport. We probably wouldn’t get an opportunity like this in the Premier League. Chelsea would never give us the access that the Galaxy or another club would. To be able to dive into a league, get into the dressing rooms and the boardrooms and see transfers was too good an opportunity to miss.

TV REAL: Soccer is in such an interesting place in America now, with interest still building. How do you balance catering to the devout, long-running fans and those new to the sport?
MARTIN: Football is so ubiquitous that even if you’re not a fan, you know what it is. When we made the Formula One show, particularly in the U.S., we almost had to say that there are cars that go 200 miles an hour, and they race around roads. Here’s how a race works. The beauty of football is it’s a pretty easy game to understand. We weren’t constrained by having to strip it back to basics. There was a level of presumed knowledge. If we can authentically tell these stories, hardcore fans may know the result or that this player got transferred, but they will get some added value from it. They’re going to see the emotional side of something they know. New fans will go along with it for the joy of the story. We don’t think too much about whether this will keep the hardcore fans happy or the new fans happy. We want to tell the best possible story in the most authentic way.

TV REAL: Tell us about the structure of the show, how you crafted the arc of each episode and the process of selecting the athletes and coaches you wanted to highlight.
MARTIN: You look at the teams, the players, the fixtures and what you think is going to be interesting—also what you think is going to be interesting six months after the season is finished. That part of it shouldn’t be underestimated. In sports, the next game is the most important thing. You have to slightly shut that noise off and focus on the stories you’re committed to, with the knowledge that there will be things that come around that are so irresistible that they must be in the series. I put the emergence of Cavan Sullivan in that bracket. That young man was not on our radar when we started the series. Midway through the series, a 14-year-old kid is making his debut for Philadelphia. Being from Philly and such a well-rounded character at 14, this kid had to be in the show somewhere. Once the fixtures came out for the year, we saw that on the opening weekend, there was a Galaxy/Miami game, and we felt that was a good starting point for a series about the MLS. Most people, if they have any knowledge about the MLS, know Galaxy. And then you have Miami, who, because of Lionel Messi, everyone is [interested in]. We said, that’s a great place to start the series, and you can explore some of the bigger themes going on in the league through those two clubs. You’ve got to balance your storytelling [with] a production schedule. At some point, we’ve got to lock in eight episodes. We can’t just keep filming and editing endlessly. All those kinds of things factor in. People like to think you have an unlimited budget and resources and can dive into any story anytime. The reality of making these shows is that you just have to make hard choices and hope you get enough of them right. Sometimes, you get that wrong, and sometimes, you can be boxed in by stories where you don’t know where the resolution will come. But we got pretty lucky on this particular show.

TV REAL: How are you positioning Box To Box in this unusual time for the content business?
MARTIN: It is a very funky time. We’ve been incredibly lucky with the sports part of our business, which helps us navigate those tricky times. The great thing about sport is I don’t think the interest in it is ever going to go away. It just throws up incredible stories and drama. You’re always amazed by the narratives and the players that come out of nowhere. When Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi call it a day, people don’t stop being interested in soccer. A Cole Palmer comes along, or a Vini Jr. There are always people who will take the mantle on and take it to the next level. That’s the great thing about sport. It is never dependent on one team or one player. It will always reinvent itself. When old heroes disappear, new heroes will emerge, or new villains will come along. That’s what’s compelling about it.