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Sports Stories

The genre of fiction that places the focus on sports, usually following a player, coach, or team as they challenge themselves to rise to the top of the sport in question.

Sports Stories can span a single game, a tournament, or an entire career. While the rules of the game, training, and the rivalry between players is the most common source of drama in these types of works, it is often the protagonist team that must learn something important about themselves to overcome the odds.

For related tropes, see Sports Story Tropes.

Examples:

See also:

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Anime and Manga

American Football

Eyeshield 21

Association Football

Baseball

Dorabase
H2
Kyojin No Hoshi
Major
Princess Nine
Taishou Yakyuu Musume, a Girl gets angry a fiancé's sexist views and decides to Beat Him At His Own Game at baseball.

Basketball

Boxing

Figure Skating

Gymnastics

Hikari No Densetsu

Judo

Dokaben
Yawara!

Racing

Tennis

Volleyball

Attack No. 1
Attacker You

Comic Books

American Football

NFL Supepro

Racing

Michel Vaillant

Multiple Sports

The classic British comic Tiger consisted entirely of sports stories, including Association Football (Roy of the Rovers, Billy's Boots, Hotshot Hamish), Boxing (Blackjack, Fisty Flynn), Rally driving (Martin's Marvellous Mini), Pro Wrestling (Johnny Cougar), Formula One (Skid Solo) and many more.

Film

American Football

Any Given Sunday
The Blind Side
Facing the Giants
Friday Night Lights: The film based on the book of the same name.
Little Giants
The Longest Yard: Prisoners play football against their guards.
Necessary Roughness
North Dallas Forty: about the Dallas Cowboys
Remember The Titans
The Replacements
Rudy: The classic college football movie about the titular character and his struggle to play football for Notre Dame.
Varsity Blues
Wildcats
The Waterboy
We Are Marshall is about rebuilding an American Football team after a plane crash.

Baseball

Angels in the Outfield
The Bad News Bears
Benchwarmers
Bull Durham
Damn Yankees: "I'd sell my soul for one long ball hitter."
Field of Dreams
For Love Of The Game: Kevin Costner's other baseball movie, about an aging pitcher who tries to throw a perfect game.
A League of Their Own is about women playing professional baseball.
Major League
The Natural
Pride Of The Yankees Gary Cooper plays Lou Gehrig in one of the most popular biopics ever made.
Rookie of the Year: A 12-year-old with a freak arm joins the Cubs.
The Rookie: A 40-year-old coach tries out for the Majors on a bet to the high school team he coaches.
The Sandlot: Kids playing baseball and having big adventures.

Basketball

Above The Rim
The Air Up There: Film starring Kevin Bacon as a college coach who goes to recruit a player in Africa to play at his college.
Blue Chips: Film starring Nick Nolte who is a college coach recruiting players to his program, but has to utilize shady means to do so.
Eddie: Whoopi Goldberg becomes head coach of the New York Knicks.
The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh: A failing pro team uses astrology to build a winning roster.
He Got Game
Hoop Dreams: a basketball documentary.
Hoosiers
Rebound: A coach gets kicked out of coaching college basketball and down to Junior Varsity.
Space Jam: Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan play basket ball against space aliens.
White Men Cant Jump: Street hustling games in L.A.

Boxing

Cinderella Man
The Fighter
Million Dollar Baby an Oscar winning film about a female boxer.
Raging Bull
Rocky and all of its sequels.

Cricket

Lagaan

Figure Skating

Blades of Glory: Two men explore the world of couples figure skating.
The Cutting Edge: An ex-hockey player pairs up with a stuck-up figure skater to compete in couples competition.
Ice Princess: The story of a Math Genius who wants to compete as a figure skater.

Football/Soccer

Bend It Like Beckham is the story of the daughter of a conservative Indian immigrant family in London, who dreams of becoming a football player against her parent's wishes.
Big Green
The Damned United
The Football Factory
Mean Machine
Mike Basset England Manager
The Miracle Of Bern
She's The Man
Victory (AKA Escape to Victory)
When Saturday Comes

Golf

Caddyshack: 1980 golf comedy.
Happy Gilmore
The Legend Of Bagger Vance Magical Negro helps win golf game.
Tin Cup

Hockey

The Mighty Ducks
Miracle: The USA defeats Russia in Olympic Hockey.
Mystery, Alaska: A small town hockey team plays the New York Rangers.
Slap Shot: A failing small town team resorts to violent play to draw spectators.

Martial Arts

The Karate Kid
Mortal Kombat is based upon an (albeit highly fantastical) martial arts tournament.
Only the Strong: An Green Beret teaches Capoeira to underprivileged youth.

Racing

Days Of Thunder, the NASCAR racing film starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
Driven
The Fast and the Furious series highlights the world of illegal street racing.
Speed Racer
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is a parody of NASCAR racing.
Grand Prix
The Love Bug series
Senna is a documentary about legendary Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna.

Roller Derby

Rollerball
Whip It is about a beauty pageant contestant turned roller derby girl.

Skateboarding

Grind: A film about skateboarders trying to go pro.
Lords Of Dogtown: A biographical skateboarding film.

Tennis

Wimbledon

Other Sports

Bring It on: A series of films that focus on high-school cheerleading competitions.
Chariots of Fire: 1924 Olympic Runners.
Cool Runnings a film about the Jamaican bobsled team.
DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story
The Hustler and its sequel The Color of Money: pool.
Kingpin a bowling comedy with Bill Murray
A Knight's Tale: Jousting
Men With Brooms: A Romantic Comedy about curling.
Searching for Bobby Fischer: Chess. It counts, dammit.
Swimfan: Someone likes swimmers just a bit too much.
Stick It: A film about gymnasts and rebellion.
Airborne: Rollerblading
Crooked Arrows: Lacrosse

Multiple Sports

Air Bud and its sequels are about a Golden Retriever playing sports.
Cheerleader Ninjas
Shaolin Soccer is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
Baseketball a comedy that plays with most common sports movie tropes.

Literature

American Football

Friday Night Lights: The chronicle of the Odessa, Texas high-school football team, the Permian Panthers.

Baseball

Casey at the Bat
Moneyball

Football/Soccer

Unseen Academicals chronicles the exploits of wizards playing football.
Fever Pitch

Racing

The SERRAted Edge series by Mercedes Lackey is about elves who race cars.

Mulitple Sports

The Chip Hilton series

Live Action TV

American Football

Blue Mountain State is about college football. And beer.
Coach a sitcom about the coaching staff of the Minnesota State University Screaming Eagles.
Friday Night Lights
Necessary Roughness

Baseball

Cricket

Bodyline

Football/Soccer

De Kampioenen is a Flemish comedy series about a highly incompetent local league soccer team. Well known in the Flanders for its Long Runner status with 21 seasons.

Martial Arts

WMAC Masters: Martial arts soap opera.

Other Sports

American Gladiators
Backyard Wrestling
Make It Or Break It focuses on gymnastics.
Wipeout centres around obstacle courses.

Multiple Sports

Sports Night: A bit more meta than some of the examples, this show is about sports anchors and the games that they cover.

Manhua

Bowling King is about ten-pin bowling.

Newspaper Comics

Football/Soccer

F.C. Knudde is a Dutch gag-strip about another highly incompetent soccer team.
Billy The Fish is a football/soccer-themed comic strip which parodies this kind of stories, starring a half-man half-fish who is a star goalkeeper.

Multiple Sports

Tank McNamara is a comic strip about a former (American) football player who is now a sportscaster.

Visual Novels

Football/Soccer

Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series Vol.1: Nijiiro no Seishun is a Visual Novel telling the story of a Soccer Club player aiming at becoming a regular in his team, all while being cheered by the club's cute manager and developping a romance with her.

Web Original

Football/Soccer

AH World Cup is a Scrapbook Story following an alternate world FIFA World Cup. Unlike most of the other examples, it follows the entire tournament instead of a single player or team.

Western Animation

Basketball

The Super Harlem Globetrotters

Football/Soccer

Racing

Cars
Hot Wheels
Pole Position
Metajets
Michel Vaillant cited above had an Animated Adaptation.
NASCAR Racers is about two rival racing teams.

Mulitple Sports

Mutant League

Speculative Fiction Series

Speculative Fiction

Speculative Fiction

Literature Genres

Animation Genres

alternative title(s): Sports Story

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