Shows Like
Shows Like Chad Powers for Sports Comedy Fans
By Jordan A. · · 4 min read
Chad Powers is back for season two on Hulu, all six episodes landing September 3, 2026, and Glen Powell is still hiding a disgraced quarterback named Russ Holliday under a fake chin and a worse haircut. The show works because it plays a cartoon premise with real heart, treating a small college football team like it matters. That mix, big laughs stacked on genuine stakes, is the whole sports-comedy sweet spot.
If you want more of it once the season runs out, these are the shows that hit the same notes. Some are pure comedy, some are dramas that happen to be funny, but all of them understand that the best sports stories are about the people, not the scoreboard. Chad Powers itself sits high on our list of the best Hulu shows of 2026, so start there and work outward.
The big-hearted gold standard
The obvious first stop. Jason Sudeikis plays an American football coach hired to run an English soccer club he knows nothing about, and the show turns relentless kindness into its whole engine. Like Chad Powers, it starts as a fish-out-of-water joke and quietly becomes something warmer. If Powell's underdog energy is what you are after, this is the gold standard, and we have a full guide to what to watch after Ted Lasso for when you tear through it.
Cobra Kai for the underdog drama
Cobra Kai proves a sports story can be ridiculous and gripping at once. Picking up decades after The Karate Kid, it brings back Ralph Macchio and William Zabka as middle-aged rivals still fighting the same fight through their own students. It is soapy, earnest, and shockingly bingeable, built on training montages and dojo grudges that should not work as well as they do. If you like the way Chad Powers commits fully to its silliness, Cobra Kai lives in the same spirit.
Friday Night Lights for the real thing
When you want the drama played straight, Friday Night Lights is the peak of the genre. Kyle Chandler stars as Coach Eric Taylor, leading a small-town Texas high school team while the whole community leans on the outcome of every game. It is less about football than about the town around it, and it earns its emotion honestly. Chad Powers plays college ball for laughs, but the ache underneath it, the sense that a season can define a place, comes straight from this show's playbook.
Ballers for the pro-level swagger
Ballers goes where the money is. Dwayne Johnson plays Spencer Strasmore, a retired NFL player turned financial manager trying to keep current athletes from wrecking their careers off the field. It trades the college locker room for Miami nightlife and boardrooms, but the DNA is familiar: a former golden boy figuring out his second act. It is glossy and fast, an easy watch when you want the sport without the sweat.
Eastbound and Down for the pure chaos
If the comedy is what you came for, Eastbound and Down turns it up to the redline. Danny McBride plays Kenny Powers, a washed-up major league pitcher with a mullet, a jet ski, and no self-awareness, crashing back into his hometown. It is meaner and cruder than Chad Powers, a character study of a man who cannot get out of his own way. As a portrait of sports-world ego gone rotten, nothing else touches it.
One more for the die-hards
For something true and funny at once, Welcome to Wrexham follows Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney as they buy a struggling Welsh soccer club and try not to sink it. It is a documentary, not a sitcom, but it carries the same underdog charge that makes Chad Powers land, and the real stakes hit harder than any script could. You will spot it in plenty of best comedy shows of 2026 conversations even though every word of it is real.
The through line across all of these is simple. A good sports show makes you care about a team you had no reason to care about an hour ago. Chad Powers pulls that trick with a fake identity and a college roster, and each of these does its own version. Any of them will hold you over until Russ Holliday's cover finally blows for good.
What makes a sports show actually work
The best sports television figures out early that the game is never really the point. Chad Powers is not about football any more than Friday Night Lights is, and Ted Lasso is barely about soccer at all. The sport is just the pressure cooker, the thing that forces a group of people to want the same thing badly enough to reveal who they are. That is why these shows travel so well to viewers who do not care about the score. You do not need to understand a two-minute drill to feel the weight of a locker room that has stopped believing, or the lift when it starts again. The wins and losses are a language for talking about ambition, failure, and second chances. Chad Powers dresses that up in a fake identity and a college roster, but underneath the disguise it is chasing the same thing every entry on this list is after, a reason to care about a team that had nothing to do with you an hour ago. Get that part right and the sport takes care of itself.
Not sure whether you want the laughs or the lump in your throat next? BingeNext reads which side of the sports story you love and lines up the right one. Get show recommendations tuned to your team.
Topics covered: chad powers, glen powell, sports comedy, cobra kai, football shows
About the author
Jordan A., Founder, BingeNext
Jordan A. is the founder of BingeNext and writes every guide on this site. He built the recommendation engine after one too many nights lost to the streaming menu, and he still tests every pick the hard way: by watching it.