Pro basketball has suddenly become fertile ground for sitcom development. ABC is developing a show set in the NBA with the cooperation of the Golden State Warriors. But Yahoo is first to take the court with a new series that follows a fictional team playing in Las Vegas. Sin City Saints will stream on Yahoo Screen and is the company’s initial attempt at creating original, scripted entertainment.
The series is centered around Jake Tullus (played by Andrew Santino), a young Silicon Valley multi-millionaire who decides it would be cool to own a pro sports franchise. In an interview with VH1, Santino described Tullus as “Mark Cuban brain and Donald Sterling action,” which apparently means a smart guy who often says dumb, inappropriate things.
Here is the official trailer for the show.
A trailer can — and is supposed to — make a show look good, but the storyline involving the front office trying to employ advanced metrics in putting together the team is intriguing.
Other key characters in the series include Ladarius Pope (Keith Powers), the Saints’ star player, and Dusty Halford (Malin Akerman), special counsel for the league deployed by the commissioner to clean up an operation viewed as out of control and reckless. Tom Arnold plays a local casino owner who presumably wants in on the Saints’ operation. Former NBA stars Rick Fox and Baron Davis are also part of the cast as employees of the team.
Mike Tollin is the show’s executive producer, with a résumé that includes Smallville and One Tree Hill. He also has plenty of sports bona fides, having served as a producer on several “30 For 30” projects, in addition to season 2 of Showtime’s The Franchise, which followed the 2012 Miami Marlins.
Sin City Saints is set for a March 23 premiere on Yahoo Screen.
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