The sports series that made Michael B. Jordan a star just turned 20, and Ted Lasso still hasn’t topped it

If you ask a room full of TV fans about their favourite sports series, you’ll get a lot of noise about Ted Lasso. No shock there: it’s charming, it’s ridiculously optimistic, and it went straight for viewers’ hearts. But while I’m not here to rain on anyone’s parade, I do think a bit of perspective is in order. Let’s be honest—when you take a step back and actually look at the wider history of sports dramas, there’s one show Ted Lasso still hasn’t managed to knock off its perch. That’s Friday Night Lights. Frankly, I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

The Origin Story

It all started with a 1990 nonfiction book by H.G. Bissinger, who embedded himself with the Permian Panthers in Odessa, Texas. That book became a film in 2004—also called Friday Night Lights, if you’re keeping a tally. But then, in 2006, NBC rolled out a TV adaptation that took quite a few liberties with reality. Instead of Odessa, the series set up shop in the made-up town of Dillon, Texas. The creators swapped real-life players for fresh-faced fictional ones, but doubled down on all that high school football mania that makes Texas unique.

Don’t go thinking this is one of those situations where the show picks up where the film left off. They share a few actors in very similar roles, but there’s zero canonical connection. The TV show doesn’t even bother pretending—it takes the themes and the vibe of the film, then rebuilds everything else from scratch.

Friday Night Lights ran for 76 episodes across five seasons and called time on its own terms in 2011.

If you like your sports drama with a bit of actual drama, this was the place to be. The whole thing kicks off when Dillon’s star quarterback Jason Street (Scott Porter) suffers a major injury right out the gate, leaving backup Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) scrambling to fill his boots. What follows is part heroic underdog story, part character study. All while Coach Eric Taylor—played with the right mix of resolve and exhaustion by Kyle Chandler—tries not to lose his mind under the pressure of a town that treats football like religion.

A Bit Bleaker Than Lasso

Peter Berg directed the 2004 film and was the key force behind this TV reboot. Where Ted Lasso is all sunshine and zippy quips, Friday Night Lights leans into the hard stuff: mistakes, tough losses, not-so-happy endings. The show isn’t scared to let things go quite wrong—on the pitch and off it. If there’s comic relief, you have to hunt for it; mostly, it’s sincere and sometimes properly bleak, using football to dig into issues like mental health, family chaos, and the absurd, unhealthy expectations people pile on teenagers to win at all costs.

What stands out about the way the story unfolds is that the cast rotates in a way that rarely happens in American series. Characters come and go, and their departures matter—progress isn’t just about the team, but about people growing up and moving on. In a nutshell: no one’s pretending everything happens for a reason, and there’s definitely not always a silver lining.

The Breakout Effect

Plenty of the show’s success is down to the standout cast, many of whom were complete unknowns when things started rolling. Take Jesse Plemons, for example. He turned up in the pilot as Landry Clarke, a nobody back in 2006, and by the end of his 65-episode run, casting directors were making calls. He went on to play Todd in Breaking Bad (2012–2013) and has since become one of those faces you see everywhere, from prestige films to massive franchises.

• Taylor Kitsch (Tim Riggins): 86 episodes, later starring as John Carter (2012), and slipping into Marvel as Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), before finding his feet in darker dramas like True Detective and The Terminal List.
• Michael B. Jordan: Landed in later seasons, already with credits on The Wire and All My Children, but Friday Night Lights launched him into genuine stardom. Since then, he’s been in everything from Marvel to Creed, and by 2025 he’d nabbed an Oscar for Sinners.
• Kyle Chandler: Already had a career, but Friday Night Lights kept him in the game—most recently, he’s turning up in DC’s Lanterns.

One of the things people sometimes miss is just how much this show did for actors who were basically unknown before. Suddenly, you couldn’t swing a cat in a casting room without knocking over someone from Friday Night Lights.