Latest
Baseball, Apple Pie, and Netflix: How Sports Influence Our Lives
Unlock the magic of sports storytelling with “Field of Dreams” on Netflix. Experience the thrill of streaming sports content and relive iconic moments today!
From backyard pickup games to hometown high school heroes to the big leagues, baseball and summer have always been a foundation for American culture. That culture is evolving and coming to life in new ways. The stories told on playing fields, courts, the gridiron, golf courses, and more often become larger than life.
The stories we tell about sports, whether watching it unfold live at a game or catching a clutch moment from our living room, shape our culture. They fuel a collective sense of having something or someone to believe in and inspire hearts and minds to rise higher. Sports create readymade drama and continue to power an entire industry of themed entertainment, from movies to streaming platforms to social media.
As a result, platforms like Netflix and Apple TV+ are doubling down. They are crafting and curating content that taps into the American dream and our collective desire for meaning, connection, and glory. The underdog can still rise. Winning is something to strive for, and hard work does pay off. Producers, directors, and content creators alike know there will be both an audience and ticket sales to sweeten the bottom line for studio executives.
Field of Dreams: If You Build It, We’ll Keep Watching
Released in 1989, Field of Dreams is a cinematic love letter to baseball, fatherhood, and second chances. When Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) hears a mysterious voice whisper, “If you build it, he will come,” he does just that. Against all logic, he plows his cornfield to create a baseball diamond. What unfolds is one of the most iconic sports films of all time, now brought to life at the original filming site in Dyersville, IA.
Ray’s decision, made on faith rather than logic, sets the plot in motion. The audience is invited to believe in something, even when it feels like a stretch. We’re rooting for Ray anyway. What makes Field of Dreams timeless isn’t only Ray’s innocence or his wife Annie’s (Amy Madigan) fiery support and 1960s protest energy. It’s not just the beauty of the Midwestern cornfields or the film’s nostalgic cinematography. It is how the story treats baseball, and belief itself, as something bigger than a game. It is about living and loving to the fullest, working through grief, and trusting that whisper of a dream even when the world tells you it’s foolish.
Baseball as a Bridge
Ray’s journey from Iowa to New York City in search of something he can’t quite define is part road trip, part spiritual pilgrimage. Along the way, he picks up key characters in Terrance Mann (James Earl Jones) and Moonlight Graham (Burt Lancaster), each carrying existential grief buried under adult responsibility. What we come to learn is that Ray is ultimately trying to heal his own heartache and lost connection with his father.
The final scene is subtle. Costner delivers the simple line, “Hey, Dad…you wanna have a catch?” with no dramatic music or visual cue to guide the audience. It is an emotional fastball that lands squarely in the strike zone for anyone who has lost someone they love, grown up in a family where truths were unspoken, or found that sports were the only safe bridge between generations.
The Real Game-Changer: Storytelling
Sports are storytelling engines. They are vehicles for emotion, transformation, and hope. They give us heroes who lose and get back up. They ask us to believe in impossible people and moments. These stories are timeless because they connect every generation to the past and challenge us to be better in the present. Who didn’t love Rudy, The Karate Kid (now fueling the Netflix reboot Cobra Kai), or Ted Lasso?
What makes sports stories so powerful and screenworthy is their simplicity. The rules are clear. The stakes are high. The conflict is built in. Every game provides a beginning, middle, and end, a classic three-act storytelling structure. Woven into that framework are hidden layers of character development, identity, inner struggle, resilience, and triumph.
Streaming platforms understand this. At Sandman Sports, we’d call this a sure bet. Netflix is investing heavily in sports content. From polished docuseries like The Last Dance, which chronicles Michael Jordan’s path to greatness with the Chicago Bulls, to fictional reboots like Cobra Kai, which picks up where The Karate Kid left off. Cobra Kai bridges generational appeal, with original stars Ralph Macchio (Daniel LaRusso) and William Zabka (Johnny Lawrence) returning as adult versions of their characters.
The appeal in these stories isn’t just the athleticism. It is the arc. Viewers don’t want just highlight reels. We want the journey. The grit. The comeback. The unspoken bond between teammates. We want to see ourselves reflected in these stories and believe that if they can do it, we can too.
Field of Dreams may have predated the sports streaming boom, but it set the tone. It proved that sports stories could carry emotional weight, cinematic depth, spiritual resonance, and box office success without needing a walk-off home run. Netflix, Apple TV+, and others have taken note. They have evolved with the times and expanded their content playground in the process.
What We Take Off the Field
Sports stories, especially those rooted in underdog grit and human goodness, still bring people together. You don’t have to be a season ticket holder or a weekend warrior to be drawn in. Whether it’s binge-watching Ted Lasso with your teenager or revisiting Field of Dreams with your siblings and parents, these narratives remind us of the values we want to carry off-screen: empathy, second chances, and the courage to believe in something bigger than ourselves.
Stay tuned here for more bingeworthy sports-related content tips, easter eggs, and fan discussion. We want to hear what some of your favorite sports-related content is and why!
Join our newsletter for weekly updates, banter, and more.
