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The Red Sox. The Celtics. The Bruins. The Patriots. The...Ballfrogs?
One of these is not like the others. At least not yet, according to the aspirations of one of professional sports' top owners and one of its most passionate cities.
In the midst of one of America's greatest sports towns, enter Boston Common Golf, one of six founding teams that comprise the upstart TGL indoor professional golf league. Its four-man squad, led by four-time major champion Rory McIlroy and owned by the vaunted Fenway Sports Group (who also own the Premier League's Liverpool Football Club, the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins and NASCAR's RFK Racing team), is the subject of GolfPass' brand-new original documentary series unCOMMON: Building A Boston Sports Team.
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The five-part docuseries follows McIlroy, his teammates and Fenway Sports Group as they endeavor to launch a sports franchise - and a sports league - from scratch. Boston Common Golf's frog logo has already won admirers, who have nicknamed it the Ballfrog.
"It's been a really cool process to be a part of," McIlroy said in a recent interview about the docuseries. "I thought it would be something that would be quite...a peek behind the curtain and something that people would enjoy to see and to see everything come to fruition."
McIlroy sees unCOMMON as the latest entry in a genre of documentaries that has captivated millions of fans across all sports, from football to Formula 1 to golf. "These sort of behind-the-scenes documentaries are becoming more common in golf and in sports, obviously with "Full Swing" on Netflix and having the cameras follow us sort of day-to-day and PGA TOUR events and majors," he said.
While McIlroy and Fenway Sports Group endeavor to position Boston Common Golf as a sports team worth supporting, they also ride the ups and downs of the fledgling TGL, which debuts January 7, 2025. That date includes a delay of a full year due to events the documentary covers, leading to something McIlroy refers to as "a blessing in disguise."
Part of a venture whose founders include McIlroy, Tiger Woods, TGL's novel "tech-infused" approach to golf pits teams against one another inside a stadium unlike anything fans have seen before. With a 60-foot video screen for displaying full shots, Bermuda grass turf hitting platforms and a center-stage artificial green complex whose contours can be tuned to match the designs of any of dozens of virtual golf holes custom-designed for league play, TGL's SoFi Stadium in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., will be the league's home.
"It was certainly a 'Wow!' feeling, walking in there," McIlroy said. "I think everything that went into the SoFi Center has been overwhelmed by just how cool the place is."
The premiere episode of unCOMMON: Building A Boston Sports Team is streaming now on GolfPass, with subsequent episodes dropping every Monday from December 30, 2024 through January 20, 2025.
Comments (1)
I watched most of TGL's 1st show. Not good. Too much hype by announcer-types.