On the latest episode of the “Daily Variety” podcast, Eva Longoria joins co-editor Cynthia Littleton to talk about her new soccer docuseries, “Necaxa,” premiering on FX on Aug. 7.
Before her involvement in the project — which follows Longoria as she tries to revive Club Necaxa, a football team in Aguascalientes, Mexico — Longoria became connected to the sport after initially investing in the Los Angeles Angel City FC women’s pro soccer team, which is majority owned by Disney CEO Bob Iger and Willow Bay.
“Angel City for Los Angeles was a very specific project led by Natalie Portman and Julie Uhrman, who wanted to prove that female owners could run a female team in female sports,” Longoria says on the podcast. “It was a good pilot program.”
Real estate investor Al Tylis and Sam Porter, an executive at Club Necaxa, approached Longoria about her interest in investing in the team. “They invest in undervalued leagues or teams in huge leagues. They have a cricket team in India and a rugby team in New Zealand,” she says. “They came and said, ‘We want to do La Liga Mexicana because there’s so much value in the Mexican League.’ The amount of eyeballs watching [soccer] outside of the Premier League and Champions League, and the amount of people that watch La Liga Mexicana, was insane. They have a very Moneyball approach. They’re very data-driven and statistic-driven.”
She continues, “I’m the opposite. I’m emotionally driven. I don’t invest in things. I invest in people. And I fell in love with Al and Sam. I said, ‘These are guys I want to be in business with.’ Anytime I have an opportunity to elevate what people think of Mexico, the beauty of Mexico, elevate the idea of the talent that comes out of Mexico and the culture, I jump at it. It’s what drives me and my purpose as a producer and director. It’s the stories I want to tell. So I thought, ‘Sign me up. I would love to invest.’”
When Longoria originally signed on as an investor in Club Necaxa, she hadn’t imagined that producing a series would be the outcome until she arrived in the Mexican town.
“I thought, ‘This is a TV show,’” she said. “The town is a character. The family that runs the team is amazing human beings: the players, the coaches and the staff. I immediately saw a TV show.”
It wasn’t until later that she teamed with “Welcome to Wrexham” producers Rob Mac and Ryan Reynolds, who serve as executive producers. “We started developing the TV show outside of the ‘Wrexham’ world. By chance, my investment group with Al and Sam decided to invest in Wrexham. In turn, they invested in us,” Longoria says.
“I love what they do with ‘Wrexham,’” she says. “I thought that if there’s anybody who knows how to do this, it’s Rob and Ryan. I knew we were going to have a show because you can’t script what happens. We’ve been through coaches. We’ve been through management changes. We sold our star player. We got him back. The emotion and drama are insane. You can’t script it.”
Since shooting the series, Longoria has had the opportunity to immerse herself in Mexican football culture and learn the significance of soccer to the community while also admitting the fears she had about embarking on unfamiliar territory within the male-dominated sport.
One fear, she explains, “was that I’m Mexican American. I’m American by nationality, and I thought, ‘Oh god, I hope they accept me.’ I was also nervous as a woman in a man’s sport, as one of the few. I thought, ‘Oh god, I hope they accept me for that too.’ The reason I saw soccer as a national language is because nobody cares about that. They care about what you’re doing for the team and how we are going to win championships. So, I’ve been welcomed with open arms.”
The episode also features Joe Otterson, Variety‘s TV news editor, detailing his reporting on the return of “King of the Hill.” The beloved Fox animated comedy is revived for a new era and a new platform in Hulu.
With the parade of remakes, reboots and re-imagined series that have come down the pike in recent years, Otterson notes that the bar for breathing new life into vintage IP is very high. The new-model “King of the Hill” cleared that bar with ease, Otterson asserts. Part of the show’s charm has always been that it is a slice of life show, rooted in Texas.
“To be able to bring something like this into the present day, to keep it consistent with the original show while also updating the humor and the story lines — that was really surprising in the best way possible, I would say,” Otterson says.
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