Basketball is one of the most known sports across the world. Remember the extremely tall players like Michael Jordan? Or the famous shoe series that sells on brands like Nike, all dedicated to this sport? Countries like the United States of America invest highly in Basketball and generate great revenue out of it.
It has national as well as club leagues in which clubs like the Lakers perform extremely well. In this fast-changing world, the awareness and want for various countries to get into sports like Football and Basketball has gathered the maker’s attention to spin shows around it. Their sole purpose is to educate their audiences and entertain them with more plot lines around the sport.
Along with this, many docu-series, movies, fiction, and semi-fiction keep coming every year that deal with such themes more closely. One such show is The Winning Time. With season two completing its finale on September 17, 2023, fans are wondering if the show will be back for a third season. Here is all we know so far.
Is the Winning Time Season 3 renewed?
No. It was found that the basketball drama saw its finale on September 17, 2023, and was officially canceled after just two seasons. While many fans are still speculating about the show’s return, the makers have officially hinted at no chance of renewal status. However, that does not rule out the chance that the show cannot have spin-offs or new shows coming out of it.
More on the cancelation of Winning Time Season 3-Reasons and more:
The show was abruptly shut down by the partner network HBO, anticipating the following reasons,
- The Writers Guild of America Strikes and SAG-AFTRA Strikes
- Not enough viewership to cost of production ratio
- High costs of maintenance
- Casting and post-production withdrawals could have been higher
The decision taken was sudden and unexpected as the viewership and ratings were falling drastically. Borenstein took to the internet after cancelation and stated, “Not the ending that we had in mind. But nothing but gratitude and love.” The cast also took to social media to tell fans that the show would be canceled.
The interesting thing here is that the show did not fully end with the Lakers losing the NBA Finals of 1984, giving the finale episode an open yet closed ending. There were two finale episodes shot, the recent one shot at the end of Summer where Magic Johnson is sitting on the floor in the Lakers shower room and is accepting defeat at the hands of the Boston Celtics.
But the one that streamed on Netflix shows a set five days later where team owner Jerry Buss(John C Riley) and his daughter Jeanie(Hadley Robinson) walk alone on the Basketball court at Forum with Jerry, conversing about how he wants to hand over everything to his daughter one day. Then, a montage comes in, showing all the real-life characters and the updates on what they went on to achieve. The music in the background is a 1982 classic by Pat Benatar, a hit then- Shadows of the Night. There were various endings tried to be shot, the latest one shot and finalized post-January, after cancelation and WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes both became a reality.
In case you haven’t watched the show yet, head to HBO or HBO Max and stream this Biographical-sports drama on the 1984 NBA games.