Vanderpump Rules producer Alex Baskin has partnered with tech mogul Alexis Ohanian, U.S. Women’s National Team forward Midge Purce and Box to Box Films to launch a new reality sports docuseries.
The Offseason will follow 11 NWSL players, including Purce, through two weeks of “training, partying and living together under one roof” in Miami during, as the title indicates, their offseasons.
The series, financed by Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six, is already in production and will consist of six half-hour episodes.
While Baskin has made his name with Vanderpump Rules, the Real Housewives franchise and other reality properties, Ohanian brings the sports investment expertise. Ohanian and his wife, Serena Williams, are investors in Angel City FC of the NWSL.
“It was a radical idea in 2019 for me to start an NWSL club in L.A., and in 2023, everyone in Hollywood told me it was a radical idea to incubate a production company and unscripted show like The Offseason, which makes me think we’re already on the right track,” Ohanian said in a statement. “All of the most successful reality TV shows feature women, and with Midge’s vision and these acclaimed producers’ execution, everyone is going to realize women’s sports was an obvious vehicle all along. Someone just had to be first.”
For fans wondering what to expect from the series, Purce, 28, called it a mix of Vanderpump Rules and Drive to Survive, the hit Netflix documentary series following Formula 1.
It’s new territory for a sports franchise, as it will bring rivals on the pitch together to live in one house. The series will detail “their personal stories, interpersonal relationships and on-field journey.”
“Midge presented us with the exclusive opportunity to produce an original narrative around women’s sports framed around an offseason tradition she established with the NWSL,” Baskin said in a statement. “This was a story that needed to be told, and one that we think represents an entirely new lane of programming.”
Box to Box cofounder Paul Martin called The Offseason “the ultimate crossover of premium sports doc and high-end reality featuring some of the most exciting, new, hot-ticket sports stars on the planet. We’ll be working with excellent collaborators in Alexis, Midge and Alex to bring the spotlight to these incredible women giving global audiences a glimpse behind the scenes of what it takes to make a sportswoman a sports star.”
In addition to Purce, the series will follow Michelle Alozie, Lo’eau LaBonta, Paige Nielsen, Ify Onumonu, Maria Sanchez, Taylor Smith, Nikki Stanton, Taryn Torres and Ally Watt.
