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A sports film is a film genre in which any particular sport plays a prominent role in the film's plot or acts as its central theme. It is a production in which a sport or a sports-related topic is prominently featured or is a focus of the plot. Despite this, sport is ultimately rarely the central concern of such films and sport performs primarily an allegorical role. Furthermore, sports fans are not necessarily the target demographic in such movies, but sports fans tend to maintain a high following and esteem for such movies.
The first known sports film was an 1894 reel depicting a boxing match between Michael Leonard and Jack Cushing, released just four months after the first movie house opened. Several other films depicting boxing matches were released in 1894.
Some sources report The Ball Game, directed by William Heise and produced and distributed by Thomas Edison Edison Manufacturing Company, as the first sports film. The film, a short documentary, is a recording of an 1898 game between the Reading Coal Heavers and the Newark Bears. Edison produced a short film based on the poem "Casey at the Bat" the following year.
Sources differ as to the first feature-length sports film. 1913's The Lipton Cup is a feature-length drama centered on sailing. 1915's Little Sunset was the first feature-length film depicting baseball. The first feature-length biographical film depicting a sport was Right Off the Bat, released several months after Little Sunset (some sources claim that Right Off the Bat was the first feature-length sports film). The film, directed by Hugh Reticker, depicts the life of player Mike Donlin. Donlin appears as himself in the film.
Despite their early popularity, sports films earned a reputation for frequent Box-office bomb and struggled to earn the support of large production companies after their popularity in the 1930s.
The most common sports subgenres depicted in movies are sports drama and sports comedy. Both categories typically employ playground settings, match, game creatures and other elements commonly associated with biological stories.
Sports films tend to feature a more richly developed sport world, and may also be more player-oriented or thematically complex. Often, they feature a hero of adventure origins and a clear distinction between loss and victory set against each other in a play time struggle.
Thematically, the story is often one of "our team" versus "their team"; their team will always try to win, and our team will show the world that they deserve recognition or redemption; the story does not always have to involve a team. The story could also be about an individual athlete or the story could focus on an individual playing on a team.
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