Real sports teams appearing in fictional content.

[G✇JI☈A]

When some form of scripted entertainment comes out about sport featuring real life sports teams it’s usually based on true story..

When it’s full fiction though it usually gets a bit difficult.. say American Football, you want to make a film about team of chumps turning their fortunes around and going on to win the big game, you would have get permission from the NFL, and then pick a team .. and who do you pick? Will it be believable if someone made a movie about the Detroit Lions winning a Super Bowl in 2023.. No an easier way would be make a film about a fictional team playing in a fictional league like in 1999 when Oliver Stone made Any Given Sunday

But sometimes we see real sports teams appearing scripted stuff.. like:

Major League: An 1989 comedy about a bitter rich widow who wants to tank the then named MLB team the Cleveland Indians so bad that she can sell the team to Miami who at the time didn’t have a team. So she moves on what star players she has and brings in some has beens, and unknowns and a minor league manager. Not only is the Cleveland team featured, it also features other MLB teams so obviously permission was got. I read that the director made this cause at the time the future Guardians were in a multi decade form slump and he thought this was the only way he will see them make the post season.

Ted Lasso: An Apple TV original (sort of, the character first appeared in advertising for NBC Sports) about a bitter rich divorcée who wants to tank an English Football Team so she (hey wait a minute!?) .. hires an American College Football coach to manage the club in hope they lose so much and get regulated down English football leagues and kill the team.. yeah sort of sounds like Major League but the story progress is vastly different. While the team Ted Lasso manages Richmond FC a fictional team.. they do play against real teams like Manchester City. In fact the EPL and Apple TV have partnered up so in future seasons the show can use more offical EPL images in the show .

There are lots of other stuff like this, but I’ll leave it there.

What are some other examples of this?

[fw91]

There were a lot of baseball movies that used MLB licensed teams from 1993-1995 in effort to keep fans engaged during the strike.

Rookie Of The Year
The Scout
Angels In The Outfield
Little Big League
Major League II

[MiLB Fan]

Sudden Death. Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a fire marshal who tries to save the Vice President during Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The fictional matchup featured the Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks, and was filmed in and around the Pens’ home at the time: the Civic Arena.

[Bang Bang Bart]

- “Mystery, Alaska”, a movie about a pond hockey team from the eponymous Alaskan town that faces off with the New York Rangers in an exhibition game.

- “The Love Guru”, an infamously bad movie starring Mike Myers as a guru hired to help a star player with the Toronto Maple Leafs get his groove back.

[Sponsored by Groose Wipes]

-There's an episode of Life With Louie where Louie's dad brags about how he helped Vince Lombardi and the Packers win a game with a play he thought of. I have no idea why I remember this.

-Back To The Future with the Cubs being the 2015 World Series champs. They were one year off (won it in 2016).

-That one romcom movie with Jimmy Fallon where he's a diehard Red Soxs fan.

[Sicho100]

The Naked Gun's California Angels-Seattle Mariners game/brawl/royal assassination attempt.

[Deleted]

As a huge NBA fan the movie Eddie always cracked me up...I grew up (and am) a Pacers fan so the Knicks are my mortal enemies...Them being coached by Whoopie Goldberg is even better haha

[MolotovMocktail]

Ace Ventura, featuring the Miami Dolphins, and having to recover their missing mascot ahead of a Super Bowl with the Eagles.

[fw91]

Jul 10, 2022 10:35:54 GMT -5 Sponsored by Groose Wipes said:

-That one romcom movie with Jimmy Fallon where he's a diehard Red Soxs fan.

Fever pitch. That really was a real sports team. Although the main plot was fiction, it followed the real events and outcome of the 2004 curse of the bambino ending Red Sox.

[Cyno]

The Broadway play "Damn Yankees" is about a man who makes a deal with the Devil so his Washington Senators could beat the New York Yankees for once. The Senators eventually became the Minnesota Twins so it seems like little has changed lol.

There's also the little known sequel called "f***ing Mets."

[Bang Bang Bart]

Jul 14, 2022 21:52:34 GMT -5 fw91 said:

Jul 10, 2022 10:35:54 GMT -5 Sponsored by Groose Wipes said:

-That one romcom movie with Jimmy Fallon where he's a diehard Red Soxs fan.

Fever pitch. That really was a real sports team. Although the main plot was fiction, it followed the real events and outcome of the 2004 curse of the bambino ending Red Sox.

That movie was based on a 1997 movie about soccer, with the diehard fan being Colin Firth playing an Arsenal FC fan.

[RI Richmark]

Celtic Pride in which two Celtics fans (played by Dan Aykroyd & Daniel Stern) kidnap the Utah Jazz's star player (Damon Wayans) to help them win the Finals.

It is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Not worst sports movies, movies period.

[EvenBaldobombHasAJob]

Space Jam uses real NBA players and their teams

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

The Scout, otherwise, I think is a fun little comedy. As a Cards fan? The ending is pain.

[XIII]

Jerry Maguire. Arizona Cardinals.

The Fan. SF Giants

Ballers. Miami Dolphins and others.

[Vice honcho room temperature]

The dad in 40 First dates having to watch the same Minnesota Vikings game everyday

[Shy Guy]

Jul 14, 2022 21:52:34 GMT -5 fw91 said:

Jul 10, 2022 10:35:54 GMT -5 Sponsored by Groose Wipes said:

-That one romcom movie with Jimmy Fallon where he's a diehard Red Soxs fan.

Fever pitch. That really was a real sports team. Although the main plot was fiction, it followed the real events and outcome of the 2004 curse of the bambino ending Red Sox.

They actually had to change the ending to the movie because Boston ended up winning the world series that year

[G✇JI☈A]

The New York Yankees was one of the teams playing during the baseball scene in Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar”


Not really sure of the situation of why they were playing at a small field in a farming community… movie never made it clear but I think pretty much everywhere was farmland and the big cities were abandoned or demolished or something and the NY Yankees toured these farm communities as an attraction.

[HMARK Center]

Always find it funny when certain teams get depicted in certain ways, depending on the era a movie is made. Like, the then-Indians being the subject of Major League works great since Cleveland was in the midst of a God-awful postseason drought, and it's easy to have them chasing the Yankees for the division since, well, it's the Yankees. Meantime the movie Rookie of the Year was made in the early 90s, so they depicted the Mets as the big bad frontrunners of the NL East with the Cubs as the plucky underdogs; the latter held up a good while longer, the former not so much.

Also reminds me that Shea Stadium appeared in Men in Black, since the World's Fair '64-'65 grounds that had Edgar's saucer are right there in Flushing Meadows, next to the ballpark. Former Met left fielder Bernard Gilkey gets his moment to shine as the player who gets distracted by the UFO and accidentally lets a fly ball plunk him on the head.

Noteworthy: apparently Major League originally had a different ending. Cleveland still won, but the point of it was that their owner wasn't really trying to sabotage the team. Instead, she was basically the first Moneyball owner, getting lesser valued players and putting them in tough situations to get the best out of them, putting on a jerkass/gold-digger wife exterior while secretly being thrilled when they succeed, thus proving her baseball smarts. Test audiences didn't like it as much, so they changed it. I can't get this 100% confirmed, but I'll read around later on sites like TV Tropes or something.

[fw91]

Jul 30, 2022 15:06:44 GMT -5 HMARK Center said:

Noteworthy: apparently Major League originally had a different ending. Cleveland still won, but the point of it was that their owner wasn't really trying to sabotage the team. Instead, she was basically the first Moneyball owner, getting lesser valued players and putting them in tough situations to get the best out of them, putting on a jerkass/gold-digger wife exterior while secretly being thrilled when they succeed, thus proving her baseball smarts. Test audiences didn't like it as much, so they changed it. I can't get this 100% confirmed, but I'll read around later on sites like TV Tropes or something.

the scene is on youtube. I almost wish they kept it. Almost.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5td3yRTgkrI&t=29s