Few genre films follow the same beat-by-beat screenwriting path as sports movies—the rags-to-riches story of an athlete or team overcoming the odds and making it all the way to fame and glory. Whether it’s based on a true story of a major league championship or a made-up yarn about a peewee football team, comedy, or drama, the elements nearly always remain the same.
How To Write Underdog Sports Movies In Ten Easy Steps
Underdog sports movies are a pure form of storytelling—your characters have a strong goal, and a clear arc, and the conflict of the narrative is quite literally a conflict. People are primed to root for underdogs already—it’s in our DNA—so follow these simple steps and the story will tell itself and engage the audience without you having to break a sweat.
1. Introduce the Underdog
First off, we have to get acquainted with who we’re going to be rooting for, whether it’s a down-on-his-luck athlete or coach, or a whole team of misfits. We meet Rocky when he is a hired thug for a mid-level mobster. Coach Gordon Bombay starts off The Mighty Ducks to do community service. That’s the entire point — the underdog starts when they’re down.
This is where character development is essential. You want the motivations of your protagonist to be clear, and a balance between their likable and possibly unlikeable traits. Write a character that audiences will root for — it’s an essential ingredient, and something that all of the best underdogs sports movies have in common.
2. Show the Suck
You can’t just tell us who’s the underdog—you have to show us. We need to see the bumbling and the fumbling and how poorly the team works together, and that often means including an epic fail moment early on in the script. If it’s the story of a natural-born talent, we need to see why they’re not living up to their potential, whether it’s addiction or shady circumstances and characters holding them back.
One of the funniest underdog sports movies, Happy Gilmore (1996), starsAdam Sandler, NYFA Guest Speaker Carl Weathers, and Christopher McDonald, and is a great example of this. A hockey player (Sandler) tries his hand at golf to win money to save his grandmother’s house. At first, he fails to adapt to the sport, requiring a lot of training and inspiration from his coach.
3. Set the Goals
The end of the movie should be telegraphed way in advance, with your underdog protagonist(s) starting the new season or setting the date for the big match or tournament. They’ll play their first game, terribly, and see just how much work they have ahead of them. This is a great time to introduce the opposition as well, the team or athlete your heroes will face off against. They should not only be the best but also total jerks with smug smirks we can’t wait to see wiped off their faces.
One of the best examples of this in action is The Longest Yard (1974), which follows a former professional quarterback (Burt Reynolds) who leads a team of inmates to victory in a game played against the prison guards. A passion project of NYFA Guest Speaker Al Ruddy, who produced The Godfather with famous director Francis Ford Coppola, the film had audiences rooting for the unexpected heroes.
4. Bring in the Surprise Star
Most sports movies have a little deus ex machina, usually in the form of a sports prodigy from a very unlikely place. Usually, they don’t even play the same sport and are antisocial misanthropes who don’t play well with others for a reason. Little Giants had Devon Sawa, and the Bad News Bears had Jackie Earle Haley and Tatum O’Neal.
In Bring It On (2000), head cheerleader Torrance (Kirsten Dunst) brings in wild card Missy, played by Eliza Dushku, who only joins the team because the school doesn’t have a gymnastics team. She turns out to be a huge asset.
5. Make ‘Em Better
When it comes to underdog sports movies, the surprise star athlete should be the catalyst for your team to start cohering and scoring their first wins. The main ingredient your characters needed before now was confidence, and by nurturing it, your story will grow along with them.
The Karate Kid is a great example of this, following Ralph Macchio’s Daniel through his intensive training. The theme is revisited in the hit spin-off series titled Cobra Kai. NYFA Guest Speaker Robert Mark Kamen wrote for 50 episodes of Cobra Kai and The Karate Kid.
6. Make ‘Em Bond
Suddenly that antisocial wunderkind is a little less anti and a little more social. Rather than turning on one another, the team is using their newfound confidence and bonding together. Usually, they’ll explicitly show this with a sing-along in the locker room or on the bus, or like in The Replacements, in jail. Audiences also see this in the 2000 film Remember the Titans as the football players from different backgrounds integrate and learn how to play as a team.
They don’t have to sing necessarily—in The Mighty Ducks, the team just had to quack at their principal in unison. This theme is also explored in Bring It On after the team is forced to come up with an entirely new routine in a few short weeks.
7. Throw in a Little Romance
Your script will need a B-plot, usually one that isn’t sports-related. The best way is to add a little romance, either with the tomboyish girl player on the team, the coach with one of the kids’ moms, or the sports league official. Rocky had Adrian, and as such, he had something more to fight for than just a championship belt.
Audiences also saw this in the film Wimbledon (2004), a romantic comedy about tennis players who meet and fall in love at the Wimbledon Championships. Starring Civil War star Kirsten Dunst, Marvel’s Paul Bettany, and NYFA Guest Speaker Jon Favreau, the film was a charming tribute to tennis. Love was explored in the tennis world (pun intended) again in the 2024 film Challengers starring Zendaya.
8. Montage!
Okay, now your team is hot, they’re winning, or your athlete is kicking ass in training, and everyone’s getting a little nookie on the side. Your story is switching gears and ramping up and you’re running out of pages and screen time. Time for a montage. Let’s see everyone progressing a little more with each cut, and feel free to throw in some shots of your scowling villains, so we remember how much we hate them.
Your montage can be simple—one of the most effective scenes of all time is Rocky’s jogging through the streets of Philadelphia. It’s so iconic, that many runners still follow the trail through Center City to the art museum.
9. Kick Off the Big Game
You’re already at the big climax—that was fast! There’s lots of hype, lots of nerves, and lots of dramatic stakes for all of our characters. This is the culmination of all their hard work, and of course, they’re up against the jerks from Act One. Sometimes it looks like our heroes are winning, but then it seems like they’re losing. Usually, it all comes down to one big play.
In the 2016 sports biopic Bleed for This, audiences see the unbelievable true story of boxer Vinny Pazienza, who despite breaking his neck, returns to the boxing world for another match. Starring Paramount Plus series The Offer’s Miles Teller as Pazienza, the final few punches in the film are real nailbiters.
10. Wrap It Up with Lessons Learned
Either your team wins, or they lose, just barely. (Unless you’re a sadist and your team didn’t even come close, or your athlete was arrested for cheating.) But that’s okay if they lost, some of our favorite athletes like Rocky and the Bad News Bears didn’t end the movie with a win. But it’s key that they learned some lessons along the way—whether it be teamwork, inner strength, self-respect, the power and glory of love, etc.—and that the previous nine steps weren’t all for nothing.
Write Your Own Story at NYFA
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