Vox Media, Go90 Begin Partnership With True Crime Sports Series From SB Nation

Vox Media has spent the last few years scaling up its video operation, to the point that its 2017 NewFronts presentation included a full slate of shows. Now, the media company is adding one of the busiest platforms in the digital media space to its roster of distribution partners. Its SB Nation brand will present Foul Play, a docu-series that will tell true crime stories from the world of sports, on Verizon’s Go90.

Each episode of Foul Play will investigate “an untold story of the sports world’s most legendary scandals, crimes, heists, and falls from grace,” according to Variety, which first reported the news of the pickup. That approach sounds similar to the one employed by 30 for 30, the ESPN docu-series that has won an endless stream of awards since it first hit airwaves in 2009. Unsurprisingly, the showrunner behind Foul Play, Charles Kreisa, has worked on a few 30 for 30 episodes in the past.

The list of people involved in Foul Play includes several familiar faces from the SB Nation team. The brand’s editorial director, Spencer Hall, is part of the creative team, as is Jon Bois, who is responsible for much of SB Nation’s best video content, including recurring segments like Chart Party. Vox Media president Marty Moe is one of foul play’s executive producers.

“It’s an important moment for us in that, unlike a lot of folks, we aren’t licensing our brand,” Moe told Variety. “This is not a co-production with a traditional TV production company. We produced this in-house.”

Foul Play‘s initial run will consist of ten ten-minute episodes. The series is expected to arrive on Go90 “later this year.”