He’s become known for finding the most compelling stories about Formula 1, tennis, golf and more, but Paul Martin’s first love is soccer.
A Southampton FC supporter, Martin played for decades and still follows the sport closely, even while serving as executive producer for documentary series like “Formula 1: Drive to Survive,” “Break Point” and “Full Swing.”
While Martin also worked on documentaries about some of the game's great figures, including Diego Maradona and Steven Gerrard, he hadn’t yet tackled a project that looked at an entire soccer league until getting approached about “Onside: Major League Soccer”, the documentary series Martin executive produced alongside James Gay-Rees and Hillary Olsen that launched Feb. 21 on Apple TV+.
“MLS was able to facilitate a level of access into the world’s most popular sport that I just don’t think you would get with some other leagues,” Martin said of Box to Box Films’ unique opportunity.
“For what we do, that was incredibly exciting and enticing.”
In focus
Box to Box looked to isolate compelling narratives and storylines that shaped the 2024 MLS season, then went deep to provide perspective and insights that offer both hardcore fans a perspective they haven’t yet seen and novice fans context that draws them in.
Having become known for profiling athletes in individual sports, Martin said he and his team looked for characters and big personalities as storytelling vehicles – and found MLS was full of them.
Martin was particularly interested in the yin and yang of managers on either side of the Hell is Real Derby. FC Cincinnati head coach Pat Noonan’s “old-school, let’s f---ing go get it” spirit, as Martin put it, balanced against Columbus Crew boss Wilfried Nancy’s “holistic view” honed from his roots in France and Canada.
“You need to find those individual stories that operate on different levels and have that subtext where people can say, ‘OK this is a story about Wilfried and Pat, but I can see it’s representative of something bigger going on within those clubs, within those cities and within those leagues,'” Martin said.
“It’s about finding stories that can operate on those levels.”
Rising star
When presented with the idea of chronicling the rise of Philadelphia Union homegrown midfielder Cavan Sullivan, then a 14-year-old approaching his historic MLS debut, Martin's storytelling instincts pushed against adding it to the list of potential “Onside” subjects.
“Fourteen-year-old kids don’t make for great TV in this kind of space,” he remembers thinking. “Then I sat down with his family and they’re incredible. Then you sit down with Cavan and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, this kid has to be in this show. Whatever ‘it’ is, he’s got ‘it’ in abundance.'”
The access that appeals to a filmmaker like Martin may seem intrusive or unwanted, especially for someone like Sullivan, a teenager trying to balance his soccer career, social life and academics.
Yet, the experienced crew that became famous for their fly-on-the-wall looks at other sports was largely unobtrusive and came away with insights that will help fans understand Sullivan and his family dynamic.
“It was certainly fun,” Sullivan said. “The Box to Box crew created a great environment with my family. We met them in one day, and they were already eating dinner with us. It was strange. There was a mic guy, two people in the house, guys coming in and out of the van in my driveway, but it was easy to adapt.”
Narrative focus
The crew is always smaller than subjects expect, Martin said, and with the athletes focused on goals like winning MLS Cup, a World Drivers' Championship or an Olympic gold medal, they quickly move on to their performance rather than anything happening in the documentary.
“We’ve been around enough elite sportsmen and elite teams to know what happens is they’re all obsessed with something bigger than our documentary series, right? They’ve got a day job that consumes them on every level – and it has to,” he said.
“Even though that’s in their head, I guarantee that for most of them, it takes 10 minutes before they forget our cameras are even there.”
That shows up in the first episode of the eight-part MLS documentary, which spotlights a Matchday 1 clash between the LA Galaxy and Inter Miami CF. That SoCal meeting of stars was an obvious choice for the “Onside” team to attend, given LA’s trophy-rich history, as well as Inter Miami boasting legends Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets.
Fast forward to December and LA lifted their record sixth MLS Cup title, rallying around injured star Riqui Puig – offering a natural bookend for the eighth and final episode.
Wider audience
While sometimes “Onside” was about being in the right place at the right time, Martin and his team took great lengths to determine how to tell these stories and package them in a way that would appeal to both MLS fans who have followed the league since 1996 and new waves of fans – both domestic and international.
Unlike F1, Martin figures most people have a baseline understanding of how a soccer game is played and what the sport looks like. That made him commit even more to selecting the right stories and telling them in the right way.
The end product is something Martin believes will appeal to lifelong soccer supporters like him and casuals alike.
“I think what I really enjoy about watching this show is you see the same levels of passion, of dedication, of sacrifice as you do in any major soccer league around the world. This is as real as it gets, and I think there’s enough moments in the show that demonstrate that,” he said.
“That’s what excites me the most is people are really going to see this show and go, ‘Wow, MLS is as real a soccer league as the Premier League or Serie A or any of those others.’”
