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Sport Nation
📻 IMPORTANT AUCKLAND UPDATE 📻
Year in Review: Best sports documentary or series
Sport Nation •  December 30th, 2025 7:00 am
There have been a plethora of quality sporting content on streaming services over the past year, and then there was Happy Gilmore 2 (although the sequel was fine for what it was).
Here are some of the Sport Nation whanau's favourites.
Forever Auckland FC (Sky TV)
Riccardo Ball, Mornings co-host: Or was it the Anchor Milk show?
Great job by not only Julie Christie and co but also the club hierarchy, coaches and players for allowing it to be such an honest show, including the kinds of scenes we've seen sanitised by other organisations with similar concepts.
This was a more unfiltered account of the season than some of the puff pieces made by Amazon covering big European teams or even NZR's All Blacks 'fly-on-the-wall' doco from a few years back.
Henry Lee, Millsy & Guy producer: Brilliant, as was the NBA insight provided by 'Starting 5'.
Full Swing S3 (Netflix)
Alex Chapman, Mornings co-host:
Best sports documentary/series of the year – season three of Full Swing. And it’s not even close.
America's Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys (Netflix)
Jacob Scott, Afternoons producer: An enthralling documentary series that highlights the beginning of the Jerry Jones Dallas Cowboys. Highly recommend.
Stephen Foote, digital producer: This one had me gripped through all eight episodes. Jerry Jones is one of a kind.
Unreal (Netflix)
Logan Swinkels, digital lead: I was big on my pro wrestling in the mid-2000s, back when CM Punk was making a name for himself as the ‘straight-edge wrestler’ and his walkout music was metalcore giants Killswitch Engage.
I stopped watching years ago, but with the WWE shifting to Netflix, the ‘Unreal’ documentary series came with it a few months later, lifting the curtain on the business and how it all comes together.
While the action in the ring is scripted, there’s still a very real human cost that comes with hurtling your body off the top rope (or higher), and for a business that was built on the concept of ‘Kayfabe’ for decades, having the WWE superstars reveal their vulnerabilities for all to see and break that code of silence gave me a newfound respect for all involved.
Side note: as a video editor by trade, the way they edited fight sequences together to look like a seamless timelapse from one camera angle was pure eye candy for me. You’ll know what I mean when you watch it.
Dare to be Different: The Michael Campbell Story (Sky TV)
Sam Ackerman, Scotty & Izzy producer: Potentially suffering from recency bias, but Cambo was a great watch and an insight into a moment in time that will live long in the memory banks of Kiwis who watched it.Â
Very well-produced too.
Starting 5 (Netflix)
Finn James, Millsy & Guy producer: It’s a shame it’s being cancelled, but the continuation of Starting 5 on Netflix has been great this year. This is bias as a huge basketball fan, but getting an insight into the lives of NBA players is always amazing.
The Howie Games Podcast
Mark Stafford, Afternoons host: In particular the series 'College Diaries', where we follow Joe McGuire (son of Eddie) who is a punter for the Ohio State Football team and go behind the scenes of a top American programme.Â
Fascinating.
What are the memorable lines in Happy Gilmore 2? | Full Noise Podcast
