One of the biggest pieces of Tom Brady’s and Michael Strahan’s post-retirement legacies is Religion of Sports, the production company they co-founded with Gotham Chopra.
Founded in 2016, Religion of Sports rode the early wave of sports documentaries and docuseries, winning five Sports Emmys for projects such as the Brady-focused “Man in the Arena” and “Greatness Code,” which examines how elite athletes reach the highest levels of performance.
Religion of Sports CEO Ameeth Sankaran joined Front Office Sports Today to discuss the ethos of the company and its founders, as well as a major deal with Fox Sports announced this week.
Listen to the full episode above and see excerpts below.
Ameeth Sankaran the growth of the sports documentary market:
“If we look at our early … projections of this market, it’s been much faster — two-to-three times than we had originally projected just for unscripted programming in sports.”
On what separates Religion of Sports’ content:
“The big distinction, at least from our perspective … would be the peak-performance angle: Tom Brady or Strahan, if you use our co-founders, or so many others who’ve been profiles. Steph Curry has a new doc coming, Conor McGregor, we just worked on, but you have all these athletes who on their dimensions have excelled in — forget about the top 1% — the 0.0001% in terms of performance.”
On how Tom Brady and Michael Strahan have shaped Religion of Sports:
“Tom’s message always from the beginning has been “premium, premium, premium.” The same thing [Brady and Strahan] strive for on the field, they strive for in business, which is just push. How do we continue to get better, be better and be bigger, but lean into what we think we do best, which is creativity and quality storytelling?”
On Religion of Sports’ new deal with Fox Sports:
“We’re just announcing that Religion of Sports is partnering with Fox Sports Films to produce new original films with an insider perspective on several athletes. … It will have the same DNA [as Religion of Sports’ other projects] of why sports matter, but with different formats.”
