5 queer sports media to catch after you’re finished with ‘Heated Rivalry’
2025 did not go quietly into that good night—up until the end, the year was serving up trend after trend alongside controversy after controversy. This December, HBO Max’s “Heated Rivalry” took the world (mostly my female friends) by storm, and nobody should’ve really been surprised.
The Canadian sports BL (boys’ love) series focuses on ice hockey, a sport that doesn’t really have that much traction here in the Philippines, but that didn’t stop it from amassing a dedicated fanbase.
After all, why shouldn’t it? Sports romance is a genre with pressure-cooker levels of romantic and sexual tension naturally baked in: You’ve got the competitive drive of being either teammates or rivals, the close bonds formed by training and sports, the intense physicality of athletics, the good-looking, toned bodies of athletes in their youth and/or prime, and the emotional catharsis of competition itself.
It’s an easy blueprint for many people to follow, whether they’re aware of it or not—in fact, some might even have experienced the very same feelings that these stories convey. Again, whether they’re aware of it or not.
So if you’re craving more queer sports stories after getting your highs from “Heated Rivalry,” here are a few more shows and movies you can line up on your stream machine:
1. “Rookie”
No need to look further than our shores if you want queer love in sports: Filipino independent film “Rookie” from Cinemalaya 2023, directed by Samantha Lee, waves that flag proudly.
“Rookie” centers its story on women’s volleyball, arguably the second most popular professional sport in the country right now. It stars Pat Tingjuy as first-time high school volleyball player Ace, who falls in love with the strong team captain Jana (Aya Fernandez), anchored by the legendary Agot Isidro as their coach. Equally legendary player Alyssa Valdez also makes a cameo.
Fortunately for us, “Rookie” is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, so you won’t have to do much frantic searching for this.
2. “The Pass”
Heading right back into sports BL, British independent film “The Pass” from the grand old year of 2016 goes right into football/soccer, exploring similar themes of young men exploring their somewhat complicated sexuality and bond against the backdrop of typical sports careers.
While largely unheard of outside its circles, “The Pass” is highly regarded—and it might even be due for a resurgence if the wave brought about by “Heated Rivalry” rises further. “The Pass” is currently available in the Philippines on Apple TV.
3. “Yuri!!! on Ice”
If we’re talking about BL in an ice sport, then there’s no beating the anime/manga phenomenon that preceded it all: “Yuri!!! on Ice.”
If you grew up on Tumblr and some parts of Twitter in the 2010s, you were probably not able to escape any talk about this series. Nevertheless, the really abridged premise for those who were: After a tough loss in the Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final, Japanese figure skater Yuuri Katsuki falls in love with champion Russian skater Victor Nikiforov, who is also his idol and coach.
If you missed out and want to catch up on what the anime world had been raving about in the previous decade, watch “Yuri!!! on Ice” on Crunchyroll.
4. “Olympo”
If you want to take it up a notch and also miss the vibes of the original “Money Heist,” Spanish youth drama series “Olympo” has everything turned up: both boys’ and girls’ love, hot, athletic bodies, and insane “Euphoria”-levels of tension, betrayal, and drama.
The story is set in the ultracompetitive elite sports training school Pirineos Center of High Performance, following a wide roster of male and female athletes trying to win sponsorships with global brand Olympo. Because of the hypercompetitiveness of the school and, of course, teenage hormones, a lot of chaos ensues.
While “Olympo” was canceled only after one season, it should be enough to tide you over until the next big thing comes along. You can stream its eight episodes on Netflix now.
5. Rhea Ripley and IYO SKY, “WWE Raw,” Toni Storm and Mina Shirakawa, All Elite Wrestling
Guess what: Pro wrestling also finally caught up to treating queer love more sensitively and empathetically.
Twenty years ago, gay love in wrestling was still a punchline—it was still something so innately ridiculous in the very macho (but also very gay) industry that what seemed like a genuine queer partnership was eventually denounced as a marketing stunt in its climax, because how could two musclebound dudes possibly be seriously gay, right?
But now, the tide has changed a little bit, and in 2025, we got a girls’ love story that was treated slightly less like lesbian porn and a lot more like earnest friendship (that could be something more within the fiction). Australian Rhea Ripley and Japanese joshi Iyo Sky started out as rivals who ended up becoming great friends after gaining each other’s respect in combat, and especially after Sky’s fellow Japanese compatriots Asuka and Kairi Sane shunned her for choosing to ally with an outsider.
A caveat: This story is not explicitly labeled as GL nor are there any overt romantic or sexual acts between Ripley and Sky—it’s only very GL-coded, and the two are very affectionate, which still allowed many fans to interpret it as GL. It lets homophobes get away with explaining that the two wrestlers are only great friends and tag partners, but the caring way it’s handled lets fans get their queer fix all the same. You can watch their full story (without too much of the wrestling, if that’s not really your thing) over on YouTube.
But for a wrestling loveteam that isn’t afraid to be very clearly GL, there’s the relationship between Toni Storm and Mina Shirakawa (also an Australian and a Japanese) over on All Elite Wrestling. While Ripley and Sky don’t seem to be queer in real life, the highly entertaining and electric Storm is an out and proud bisexual who makes her sexuality a classy joke on the show.
Their love story has cooled down a bit over on the show (AEW apparently told them to tone down the physical stuff, but they’re still presented as somewhat of a couple), though you can watch clips of their work on YouTube, barring a video compilation that strings together the narrative.
