A sport film is a fictional film genre which makes use of sport as the central theme of the movie. It is essentially a fictional production where a specific sport, sporting occasion, actor, or supporter of sport are heavily involved, and that depend strongly on sport for their main plot inspiration or resolution. There can be several reasons why this happens. For one it is easy to create a plot when you have an active and vocal participant who is prone to expressing their opinion about a topic. The audience may not understand the context, but they do recognise something about the character that they care about. For instance if an athlete is highly critical of an athlete playing for their club, it is possible that viewers will empathise with them and root for the player.
The other reason for fictional characters being so prominent in sport films, is that many of us only associate winning with one aspect of a game; goals. So if a movie focuses on a player’s ability to score a lot of goals, it is very easy to link it to positive attributes a player has like being a goalscorer, for example. Therefore it is not uncommon to find characters like this in sports movies, especially if we only attribute goals to sport and don’t pay attention to other factors which affect a game.
For fiction to be successful there needs to be a balance between fact and fiction, the former often relying on well known facts whilst the latter relies purely on the imagination. The best way to ensure fair competition is to ensure all forms of media and entertainment have the required credibility, including the major sporting events. If a story includes a certain element of doubt then the public will doubt that element of fact, which is why fiction becomes the dominant influence in society. It then falls to the courts, like the police, to regulate the use of what is commonly known as free speech in these situations.