The signing of Juan Soto by the New York Mets was a really big deal. Just how big? It’s getting its own dramatic docuseries from the team about the free agent signing.
We’re at an interesting moment in time in sports documentaries. The New York Giants were the laughingstock of the football world after the offseason edition of Hard Knocks showcased the painful decision of letting Saquon Barkley walk away to the Philadelphia Eagles helped launch them to the Super Bowl. It was a rare and poignant moment of a team actually lifting the curtain while showing the world something very real and vulnerable.
What the Mets seem to be putting together in Queens is the exact opposite of that.
On Monday, the team released a trailer for a two-part docuseries on their social media channels called The Pursuit that promises to tell the inside story of how the team landed Juan Soto in free agency. And it’s so over-the-top with dramatic cut scenes and thrilling music that it borders on parody.
Few pursuits have been as captivating!
Few pursuits have been as thrilling!
Few pursuits have been as compelling!
Of course, we could have probably skipped all the talk from Mets personalities, news clips, and glowing headlines, and just splashed “10 years, $765 million” on the screen and been done with it.
Jokes aside, this perfectly encapsulates the new era of sports documentaries, right? Bill Belichick and North Carolina can’t come to an agreement with NFL Media over the Tar Heels appearing on the offseason Hard Knocks with creative control issues at the center of it. So they can then launch their own documentary with their own film studio and not have to worry about anyone else trying to tell stories that may not fit their ideal version of reality.
Sports documentaries aren’t really about telling stories anymore though. And that’s why the medium has largely lost its luster. The vast majority of sports documentaries these days, especially ones produced in house, are glorified marketing projects. And it’s well within the rights of teams to do so, it just has to be seen through that lens.
This Juan Soto Mets documentary is more of the same. It’s the team taking a victory lap after landing the biggest fish in free agency, and if they want to dramatize that like it’s the 1986 World Series, then more power to them. At least it beats the Yankees’ version, “Say It Ain’t Soto.”
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