‘America’s Team’ Directors on Filming the ’90s Cowboys Doc and Comparisons to ‘The Last Dance’
With just a few weeks to go before the start of football season, the Dallas Cowboys took over Los Angeles on Monday for the premiere of Netflix doc America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys.
The series follows the highs and lows of the ’90s Cowboys, with owner Jerry Jones at the head and star players in Troy Aikman, Deion Sanders, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin; many of the the breakout players of the time sit down for interviews, along with the Jones family and media personalities Al Michaels, Andrea Kremer and Skip Bayless.
Brothers Chapman and Maclain Way — who were behind sports doc series Untold — direct the series, in what Maclain said “ended up becoming the project for a lifetime for us” after they were asked by Netflix to be at the helm.
Of getting all of the subjects on board to speak about both the good and bad of that era, Maclain noted, “We communicated that early on, just like, hey, this team did have, I think it was fair to say, a little bit of a reputation, not only just for how talented they were but also a little bit of the bad boys of the NFL — a lot of suspensions, a lot of arrests, a lot of things like that. And for us, we knew from day one we wanted to tell a full, complete and accurate picture of this whole story, but that doesn’t just mean dark times and exposé. We want to celebrate the wins.”
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The project has drawn early comparisons to The Last Dance, for a similarly close look at ’90s sports superstars. “We’re huge fans of The Last Dance, that was an incredible documentary series. I think this is maybe slightly different in its own way, I think aesthetically it kind of stands on its own, as its own thing,” Chapman responded. “But we’d love to tap into that cultural zeitgeist, to look back on an iconic ’90s sports team and hopefully it’ll resonate.”
They also joked that with Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders series America’s Sweethearts streaming on Netflix as well, the two may be considered companion pieces: “That’s a great show. This is a little bit of a different look,” Chapman said, as Maclain added, “A little bit of a different era but there’s cheerleaders in our show too!”
Smith and Irvin were also on hand at the premiere, as Smith noted how “it felt good to relive it because one thing about us, we work so hard, we don’t take the time often to reflect. And plus, that was our time, our time has come and gone and it’s all about the current Cowboys right now. But this right here gave us a chance to go back and reflect and remind us what we were able to accomplish in a short period of time.”
David Ellison, the brand new owner of Paramount, made an appearance at the event — his first time walking the carpet since his takeover — as Skydance produced the series and the directors called the company “the best partners that filmmakers can ask for.”
Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria also told the crowd before the screening, “Back in March of 2023, I was having lunch with David Ellison at the Tower Bar, and he mentioned he had secured the rights to the telling of the Dallas Cowboys. I don’t think he got the sentence out before I said, ‘Wait, wait, wait, stop, we have to have it no matter what.’ And he said, ‘No, no, no, I’m telling you I’m getting the deal, I don’t have it closed yet.’ I was like, ‘It doesn’t matter, we just have to have it,’” as she’s a big Cowboys fan. “So David thank you for saying yes; Cowboys, too, thank you for saying yes.”
America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys starts streaming Aug. 19 on Netflix.
