
Casey Bloys, the head of content at HBO and HBO Max, hadn’t come across the book the show is based on, but he has a strong warning for other television executives considering similar projects: don’t try to copy it. He believes trying to create another romance centered around a different sport, like baseball or football, would be a mistake. Bloys acquired the U.S. rights to the drama last year because it felt original and new. Now that over 11.5 million viewers have watched it, he argues that quickly releasing a bunch of similar sports romances would be a bad idea. He says it’s something that can’t be easily duplicated, pointing to the many unsuccessful sitcoms about attractive young people that appeared after the success of Friends in 1994. He emphasizes that would be the wrong approach to take.