TV Shows start making football jerseys?

Football is no longer just about football - we all know that - and the recent collaboration between semi-pro side Hackney Wick FC and Netflix’s hit drama series ‘Top Boy’ is our latest confirmation of this notion. Alongside Nike, the two released home and away kits for this season, customized by Foday Dumbuya, founder of London-based brand LABRUM. Three industries, all in one - one kit. Fashion and football, football and TV entertainment.

The release of Top Boy’s final season on September 7th has taken the UK by storm and ignited serious hype around anything that has to do with the show, handing Hackney Wick directors the perfect environment to exploit and launch their kits. Both jerseys display two key elements: a zig-zag motif inspired by traditional African art and the 32 postcodes of London woven into the fabric, intended as a celebration of London’s moving, lively, and diverse cultural scene.

As for the sponsors, the Top Boy and Netflix logos take up a big portion of the front of the shirts. While normal for a jersey’s main sponsor, symbolically, this can be seen as the accentuation of a growing link between football and TV. Two industries, part of the bigger entertainment field, seem to have never been as close as one might think they should be. After all, both provide spectacle. In fact any football fan can spend hours talking about the constant interaction between football and fashion, the same cannot be said about the sport’s situation with cinema and TV. There is still a big gap, but this unlikely collaboration may have confirmed the existence of a subtle trend that has been lurking in the football world for the past couple of years.

How do you make football and TV entertainment work?

Throughout the past century or so, many attempts have been made at merging football and cinema, with few true successes. While movies like ‘Bend it like Beckham’, and the ‘Goal!’ trilogy have acquired cult status over the years, they represent more of an exception than a rule. The truth is, that although both are forms of entertainment, the ways they provide spectacle are fundamentally different. One is based on scripted stories, meant to captivate the audience thanks to meticulously prepared techniques, strategies, and acting. TV entertainment sucks you into a different world - the one portrayed on screen. Football, although equally captivating, captures a person’s interest much differently - it is unscripted, unpredictable, full of surprises. There is no element in a football match that can be scripted, which is why trying to fuse the sport with a serious plot is counter-productive. So, the secret here is that instead of trying to force one onto the other or vice versa, football and TV entertainment have to work alongside each other in a strictly parallel fashion. The docu-series ‘All or Nothing’, for example, has seen lots of success over the years, mainly because it keeps things real and spontaneous - just like in a football game. There is no script interfering with what happens in the heat of the moment, and this allows football and TV to co-exist in this particular partnership.

Ryan Reynolds and Ted Lasso

Another similar docu-series - ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ - has been very successful as of recent, with the Welsh club’s development told by owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney on-screen. The two, being famous Hollywood stars, are a breathing testament to the developing intersection of football and TV entertainment, and initiatives like this docu-series only reinforce the idea that there is a lot to gain when putting these two industries at work together. TikTok, Expedia, United Airlines - these are just some of the big name sponsors that have already put faith into the Wrexham project, and the profitability that it brings thanks to its heavy involvements in the entertainment industry. After all, the club did turnover close to £20 million last season, and increased their visibility thanks to a USA Tour where they faced giants like Manchester United and Chelsea. All of this thanks to the docu-series.

And finally, no discussion of football and TV shows is complete without the mention of the hit series ‘Ted Lasso’. As opposed to what has been mentioned thus far, Ted Lasso is a completely fictional show, and it disproves the entire overarching idea of this article - another exception to the established rule. Regardless, Ted Lasso’s impact on TV’s relationship with football is simply undeniable, and the show’s popularity was so extensive, that the main characters were all included in FIFA 23 as part of the AFC Richmond team, coached by Ted Lasso. Even Nike has tried to make the best of Ted Lasso's fame, releasing a collection of AFC Richmond gear and merchandise earlier this year, following that up with an advert in May that focused on the famous, fictional London-based team.

Soon enough, more brands, shows, movies, and actors, will start to recognize the thinning line that separates football and TV entertainment. Not only will there be much more football in successful movies and shows, but we will see more collaborations, sponsorships, as well as endorsements with both actors and players. The kits released by Hackney Wick and Top Boy may only represent a mere sponsorship agreement and nothing more, but they do expose a growing trend: football and TV entertainment are increasingly moving closer, in more ways than one.