USC Trojans basketball star JuJu Watkins will be featured in an upcoming documentary series titled On the Rise: JuJu Watkins for NBC and Peacock.
The series, as first reported by The Hollywood Reporter on Monday, will premiere on Saturday, November 23rd at 3 p.m. ET on NBC before a marquee game between USC and Notre Dame that evening.
On the Rise is being produced by Rich Paul’s Klutch Sports, LeBron James’ Uninterrupted, and 4.4.Forty.
The project is set to follow Watkins, a current sophomore, from her high school basketball days through her freshman year with the Trojans. It is one of many women’s sports documentaries about to be released in what is a booming time for the space.
“The boom in women’s basketball was starting to take hold, obviously, and everything in the landscape was shifting, but it also was pretty clear early on that JuJu was special, even from that early stage,” 4.4.Forty Media’s Danny Barton said. “I actually remember calling Jamal [Henderson of Uninterrupted] about this when we first started, and just saying, ‘Look like we need to put cameras on her, because something great is going to come out of this.’ And we didn’t even know what it was ultimately going to be.”
Watkins sees the docuseries as an opportunity for fans to get to know her better. “I’m an introvert, so I don’t really share that much online, honestly,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “I think to just give people more perspective into who I am, and my family, my friends, I think that’s also an important dynamic. And like I said, I’m introverted, so this is kind of my way of sharing myself a little bit with everyone else.”
According to Barton, if this season of On the Rise is successful, the series could continue into Watkins’ sophomore year and even potentially into the WNBA. “We’re definitely in the middle of discussions right now to figure out what continuum would look like,” Barton said. “Obviously, as she continues to grow, the story continues to grow, and the potential for it’s there.”
With On the Rise‘s first two episodes being distributed on NBC’s broadcast channel in the lead-up to a USC game, the series is being given a solid springboard to gain an audience. The rest of the series will seemingly air on Peacock.
It’ll be interesting to find out if the docuseries will attain any linear success. The sports doc format is popular, but quickly becoming oversaturated. As the face of women’s college basketball this season, JuJu Watkins could have the pull to overcome that saturation and command an audience.
At the very least, fans of women’s college basketball will now get an inside look at the sport’s biggest star. And that alone is worth something.
