It almost seems like one of the most reliable signs that football season is on the horizon is the debut of another season of HBO’s Ballers.
This past summer was no different, as the show starring The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) as a financial planner jostling among the NFL’s most powerful figures — and mismanaging his friends money — first aired a few weeks before the kickoff of a new season in the actual, real NFL.
Next year will follow suit, as the network confirmed that the show will be back for a fourth season in its usual late summer slot in 2018.
The fourth season saw the show take an interesting turn, deviating away from Spencer Strasmore’s attempts to letigitimize himself as an advisor to NFL players to the meta — an attempt to move the Raiders to Las Vegas. Spoiler alert, the real life Raiders are moving to Vegas, but we are pretty sure Stasmore and Joe Krutel (Rod Corddry) didn’t have very much to do with it.
Among the most interesting aspects of the show, which follows the off-field adventures of several players such as Charles Greane and Ricky Jarrett, is the intermingling of the actual NFL and likenesses into the show(Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are referenced several times as having worked alongside Jarrett with the Patriots; DeSean Jackson and others have made cameos as themselves).
How much will the actual, real life NFL world will continue to intersect with the fiction of the show as it continues its run on HBO.
Ballers has registered as HBO’s second most watched original series currently airing on the channel, behind Game of Thones (with Westworld close behind). The show averages around 2 million viewers per episode. It has also been one of the more quickly growing viewing choices, as its eyeballs have grown more than 68 percent over last year’s season 2.
