How ‘American Sports Story’ Navigates Those Complicated NFL Variables

In 2013, at the height of his NFL power, New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez shot and killed Odin Lloyd. In 2015, a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder. And, in 2017, he was discovered hanging in his prison sell and pronounced dead an hour later.

The inaugural season of American Sports Story aims to unravel how an auspicious football career went so far off the rails — but, just as importantly to its producers, how massive enterprises like the NFL and NCAA football and the hundred million-plus viewers they court played a role in the tragedy. “We’re trying to talk about our obsession with this national religion of football, while also telling a story about what happens when a complicated and flawed individual intersects with systems of power,” executive producer Brad Simpson tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s a stew of things that make it bigger than just a tabloid true crime story. It’s a reflection on us as American consumers.”

But shining any unflattering light on the NFL isn’t exactly easy, notes Simposon and fellow EP Nina Jacobson. The pair had previously collaborated, under their Color Force banner, with Ryan Murphy on FX anthology American Crime Story (The People v. O. J. Simpson, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Impeachment). But each of those projects had a bit more space from the events they retold than their sports foray — which has now aired three of eight episodes on FX and FX on Hulu. Speaking earlier in September, Simpson and Jacobson detail what obstacles they had to overcome in telling an authentic NFL story and offered a promising update American Love Story.

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Was it always the plan to first tackle the Aaron Hernandez story with this franchise expansion or did you have other sports personalities in a development bake-off?

BRAD SIMPSON The genesis was both the Boston Globe Spotlight team articles and the podcast. They both had compelling aspects — the deep reporting of the articles and the audio recordings and jailhouse tapes for the Wondery podcast. [FX’s] John Landgraf had said he’d love to do something with it, developing it potentially as an American Crime Story. What we loved was that it took this case that everybody thought they knew everything about — that tabloid headline, which was like, “Thuggish football player kills people and then kills himself” — and flipped it on its head. Underneath that, it’s a very complex story about a guy who was not predestined to murder, but had this preternatural talent and ability and examines how things went so wrong. His family, the system and ultimately Aaron himself enabled a situation in which he ended up hanging alone in a prison cell.

One of the marquee attributes of American Crime Story has been these portrayals of almost larger than life personalities. The characters of the O.J. Simpson trial and the Bill Clinton presidency, they’re almost mythical in size. Tim Tebow is no Linda Tripp. So, with the exception of maybe Bill Belichick, you don’t really have that here. Was that a concern?

SIMPSON I guess it depends on your perspective. Nina’s much more of an avid sports fan than I am, but I think for a lot of people, Bill Belichick and Urban Meyer are insanely famous. I think the real centerpiece of fame here is the teams themselves: The New England Patriots, the Florida Gators. These are massive institutions that gather insane crowds. Like with all of these stories, what happens when flawed individuals come into intersection with these massive machines and systems of power? In the O.J. case, those lawyers were just normal people who suddenly became the most famous people in America. 

NINA JACOBSON We felt like we had a lot of human drama, even if the people weren’t as well-known. But we also felt a lot of pressure, knowing for sports fans and how they look at some of these more iconic figures, to either do it right or not at all. If there wasn’t going to be a big story with a Tom Brady character, we weren’t going to just throw in Tom Brady just for the sake of throwing in some Tom Brady.

Brad, you mention what massive and powerful machines the NFL and NCAA are. This being a less than flattering portrayal of both, what obstacles did that present? 

JACOBSON Nobody was racing to lend us their professional football stadium. (Laughs) Nobody was like, “Please take ours!” We ended up having to shoot that at a professional stadium that was built in Orlando to attract a team — but has yet to succeed in doing so. 

SIMPSON There was no rush for product placement, either. Look, these teams and colleges are notoriously protective of their brand and image. Since we were telling a factual story, we didn’t have to worry about copyright claims. But we need to grapple with what happens to these kids who go to college and are put into what is essentially a profit-making enterprise. They’re given no guardrails. They’re bailed out when they get in trouble. And they’re accelerated into the center of American culture. What obligation do we have to adjust the game when the hits are getting harder and harder to the head? We’re trying to acknowledge that you can love football and be critical of it at the same time. There is a cost to this sport that we love. But, no, we did not get a lot of love from the world of professional sports as we were making this show.

This is a pretty damning peg, but we are speaking less than 24 hours after Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa got a concussion, the third of his career, live on Thursday Night Football.

SIMPSON There are things that we could be doing to protect the players better, but everybody wants it harder, more intense, faster. There was a huge commotion about CTE [Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy] around 2017, but it seems to have gone away. People sort of go into this acceptance mode of, “Yeah, we pay these guys a lot of money so that we can beat the shit out of them.” I think that you can have the sport and love football while also protecting the players better.

It seems like a lot of fans support those protections, but they’re almost conditioned to not think about that. Doing the fantasy football draft at the start of the season seems to set up this false premise that it’s like a video game. 

SIMPSON The Wondery podcast was called Gladiator. It’s very specifically positioned in the tradition of sports where we all get together and root for our heroes and against our villains. We want blood. Not every sport is like that. But Stu Zicherman, who created the show, the first thing he said when he sat down with us was “I love football.” He’s a football obsessive. So it’s more about acknowledging that there is a cost to this American religion. 

What were your conversations like about keeping the tone from getting too dark? This is a grim story. Both seasons of American Crime Story tackle serious subjects, but there also seemed to be more room for levity.

JACOBSON We definitely did not want it to be too tough of a hang. And before it all goes wrong, so much of it is still about a dream come true. We wanted to capture some of the excitement of the ride that he went on and the fun of being a bit behind the curtain. We staffed our room with a variety of writers, including ones who had the experience of playing professionally, of being in those locker rooms and playing at a highest level. Nobody wants to watch something that isn’t going to invite them in and keep them happily served until the story is done.

Back to that stadium in Orlando, you were never supposed to shoot in Florida. How much of a wrench in the production was that?

SIMPSON We shot in New Jersey and originally planned to use a stadium in New Jersey. First we got rejected by Rutgers… and then by every possible stadium. A lot of people seem to have ties or personal connections to the people involved in this. But it was so important that the football look real  — especially for the Patriots. So our team sourced this stadium in Orlando that’s the size of a professional stadium but now just hosts monster truck shows. It’s sort of an empty Field of Dreams. So, at very end of production, we went down to humid Orlando and spent two weeks with this group called Game Changers. They employ ex-professional athletes to authentically recreate sports for TV and film. We were recreating exact plays, and we brought in a bunch of guys who shoot NFL games to augment our camera crew. Orlando, by the way, is a terrible, terrible place. (Laughs)

You’re storytellers, but there’s also a lot of franchise management at play here. Why expand into American Sports Story when this could have naturally fit under the American Crime Story umbrella? 

JACOBSON These American Stories, the ones that we’re involved in, the goal is to ultimately hold a mirror back on us as a culture. It could have certainly lived as an American Crime Story, but the material was so rich that it felt like we could begin this idea of expanding into American Sports Story. Future seasons wouldn’t need to be about crimes. They probably won’t be. But we’re also developing American Love Story. We have great scripts of the first two episodes about John F. Kennedy Jr. And Carolyn Bessette — which, again, mirrors our shared cultural obsessions and flaws. It’s not always the most flattering mirror.

Have you already discussed possible future installments and who they might focus on? 

SIMPSON Hopefully people will want to watch this. If they do, we have multiple things in development. We try not to announce these things. What we’ve discovered, especially with Ryan Murphy shows, is that if you mention something once, you’re asked about it forever. Ryan once mentioned a Studio 54 season of American Crime Story and we’ve been asked about it for 10 years. We tend to see what percolates and what the demand is. The culture shifts and we have to do what’s relevant to the moment we’re in. 

To that point, I was surprised to hear that you have two scripts for American Love Story. Do you see that moving forward with casting and filming soon? 

SIMPSON We hope to do it soon. We don’t know. It’s been interesting to see this resurgence of affection and attention around Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, both as a sort of style icon and a cultural figure. It is a great untold, tragic story. So, hopefully coming to TV or streaming soon. 

JACOBSON You really can feel these cycles where we turn back and evaluate and look at people in a new light. And, right now, it feels like we’re collectively looking back at the two of them — and her specifically. 

O.J. Simpson died earlier this year. He was one of the most controversial figures of our lifetime, but the dramatization of his murder trial ended up being one of the biggest projects of your respective careers. How did you process that death, because it certainly closed a chapter in American history that you ultimately played a part in?  

SIMPSON It was incredible to see how much it was covered and how much that story still resonates and fascinates people. What O.J. represented — which was explored more by Ezra Edelman’s documentary [O.J.: Made in America] than by our show — was this unique intersection of celebrity, race, sports and crime. It’s very unique to him. But I believe that O.J. Simpson killed his ex-wife [Nicole Brown Simpson] and killed Ron Goldman. There is a real tragedy at the center of that story that sometimes gets lost. But what struck me was the way that America, decades later, is still fascinated by what O.J. represented.

Your next project at FX is the adaptation of Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing, a tricky book to tackle considering it focuses on one crime while also encapsulating the entire history of The Troubles in Northern Island. Can you tell me how you’re approaching it? 

SIMPSON It is a tragic, tragic story. Josh Zetumer, the showrunner, found a way to make it very personal and emotional while still telling the whole story. It starts in the 1960s and goes up to the 2000s. He stitched it together. I think that it’s going to be a sleeper hit that catches people off guard, and I hope we’ve done justice to Patrick’s book.

American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez releases new episodes Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on FX and Hulu.