When Vice Sports launched online in June 2014, it played a different game than a lot of the shock-value content in which its mothership brand traffics. With the debut tomorrow of Vice World Of Sports on Viceland, that canny sensibility could make it the breakout show for the burgeoning but often blasé cable channel.
As I say in my video review above, VWOS is a contender and worth getting a ticket for. Hosted and executive produced by TV and sports journalism veteran Selema Masekela, the nine-episode (and one special) first season travels in search of the heart and soul of sport from Ghana to Serbia to a Michigan hockey town, 
explores gambling, and looks at the endurance of basketball on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Always much harder to make than they look, sports documentaries and sports investigations score when they take the viewer beyond the stats and even the athletes and into the context that creates the competitor and the game – and that’s what VWOS has nicely done.
Now, you don’t actually have to wait until 11 PM ET on April 27 to see the first episode of Vice World Of Sports; Viceland, partially owned by A+E Networks, put it up online last week. Check that out, then click on my video review and tell us what you think.
