'Born To Play' Trailer: ESPN Debuts Documentary About Women's Tackle Football Team

The Boston Renegades were born to play. The women's tackle football team is the subject of the latest ESPN documentary, Born to Play, which follows the athletes throughout their 2018 season as they tried to capture the WFA national championship. Watch the Born to Play trailer below.

"Being on the field just makes me feel alive. I feel that's where I'm supposed to be."

ESPN's latest documentary, Born to Play, delves into the little-known world of women's tackle football. Directed by Viridiana Lieberman, the film is a love letter to the sport and the badass women who play it. Lieberman, herself a longtime women's sports fan, had completed a graduate degrees in women's studies where she examined the cinematic representations of female athletes, turning her thesis into the book Sports Heroines in Films.

But the filmmaker wasn't satisfied with what was out there and searched for a narrative that she could turn into a documentary. She found it with the Boston Renegades women's tackle football team, which in 2018 was attempting to win the WFA national championship to redeem themselves for falling short the season before.

"One of the things that I loved most about the team is that I felt like they were the purest form of the sport, in the sense that I don't feel like there's anything gendered about throwing a ball or making a tackle or running down the field," Lieberman told Variety. "Football culture has always been aligned with brute strength and domination and hard hits, but the sport itself is actually kind of like a game of chess."

Born to Play is the latest documentary to debut on ESPN after the network found great critical and watercooler success with documentaries like the Michael Jordan docuseries The Last Dance, the Bruce Lee doc Like Water, and the Lance Armstrong two-part doc, LANCE.

Here is the synopsis for Born to Play:

With heart, hustle, and hope, the Renegades are on the path to redemption after losing in their championship game the previous year. These unpaid athletes put their bodies on the line while maintaining full-time careers that support their lifelong dream. Born To Play shines a light on a team of remarkable women, ranging in age from 19-49, from a vast spectrum of backgrounds who dedicate their time, bodies and paychecks to pursue their passion for playing football.

Born to Play premieres on ESPN on July 1, 2020 at 9 P.M. EDT.