‘Drive to Survive’ producer Paul Martin says MLS was ‘a project I just couldn’t resist’

For someone with a passion for soccer, Paul Martin got to spend time in a world he cares about. The Emmy Award winner’s latest sports project was a labor of love.

Apple TV+’s Onside: Major League Soccer debuts on Feb. 21. The eight-part docuseries, produced for Apple by Box to Box Films in partnership with Major League Soccer, tells the story of the 2024 MLS season with access to players, coaches, and clubs. Martin, one of the executive producers, is best known for Formula 1: Drive to Survive.

“From a producing side, I think it was wanting to tell stories in the soccer world and realizing that because of the way the MLS was structured, because of the unique partnership between Apple and the MLS, it was just an incredible opportunity access-wise that we probably wouldn’t get with the Premier League or La Liga or Serie A or one of the big European leagues.,” he said. “So, it worked on every level for us as a company, but for me as well. It was a project that I just couldn’t resist.”

Accessing the inner workings of a sports league can be challenging. Often, what the viewer gets is the illusion of access. HBO’s Hard Knocks has generally perfected this. Everyone wants to be portrayed in the best possible light. The Saquon Barkley embarrassment for the New York Giants is an outlier.

There’s also one key difference here. Onside: Major League Soccer takes place after a season as opposed to before. Martin said he captured rare footage.

“You see clubs talking about firing managers,” he said. “You see that in the Atlanta episode. We’re on both sides as two clubs are trying to sign players. That’s just stuff that you wouldn’t (see). I’ve been around football long enough to know how closed it is, particularly in Europe, and you wouldn’t get that access. We had access to a 14-year-old phenomenon (Cavan Sullivan of the Philadelphia Union). If he were playing at a Premier League club, they would have let us nowhere near him.”

Sullivan, now 15, is considered a prodigy and is the future hope of the MLS. If he develops, he could lift American soccer to new heights. Onside: Major League Soccer has an episode dedicated to him. In July 2024, when Philadelphia played the New England Revolution, Sullivan became the youngest player in league history to make his MLS debut. He is also believed to be the youngest debutant among the top North American professional sports leagues.

On that special July day, Martin’s cameras were there.

“If he does go on to be the player that people expect him to be, that will be a phenomenal episode that people will look back on,” he said of the Philadelphia native. “We were incredibly fortunate to be allowed into that. I think it’s a great moment in the series. It’s a great episode in the series.”

Understandably, much of the national mainstream coverage of the MLS has focused on Lionel Messi. He gave the league a jolt when he signed with Inter Miami CF in July 2023.

Martin said that Onside: Major League Soccer goes beyond typical storyline and is focused on numerous players and storylines. When asked if there was something he wished he had documented that he couldn’t get, Martin paused briefly.

“You always want more, more access, more insight,” Martin said. “The challenge of making these series is that you genuinely can’t be everywhere all the time. You have to make choices and have to follow those choices. So, when I look at the eight episodes, I’m pretty pleased with where we ended up.”

Onside: Major League Soccer debuts on Feb. 21 on Apple TV+.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDohkj4flh0&ab_channel=GOALUSA