Box to Box Films, the British-based production company behind the popular Netflix series Formula 1: Drive to Survive has agreed to a partnership with Major League Soccer in the United States.

MLS is poised to be the latest league to get the proverbial 'DTS treatment', as the company headed up by Academy Award and multi-BAFTA award winning producer James Gay-Rees will produce content and potentially a documentary, the league's deputy commissioner Gary Stevenson told The Athletic.

MLS signed a $2.5billion media rights deal with Apple lasting ten years. It's likely any series or content that Box to Box produces will be on their Apple TV+ platform. Box to Box has previously worked with Apple TV to produce sports content in the form of the docuseries 'Make or Break', which serializes professional surfing.

The company has also recently tried to shed light and popularize other 'niche' sports such as golf and tennis through two recently-debuted Netflix series': golf's 'Full Swing' and tennis's 'Break Point'.

But it's 'Drive to Survive' - the Netflix documentary that just released its fifth season - that has seen the sport of Formula One grow in popularity, especially in the United States which has seen audiences almost triple since 2018.

According to The Athletic, a 'Drive to Survive'-style documentary about MLS has been discussed, however, 'specifics have not been finalized'.

Major League Soccer could be perfectly positioned to increase its popularity through the recent craze surrounding serialized sports documentaries that give insight into individual teams and clubs around the world.

Most notably in football, teams such as Arsenal, Manchester City, and Tottenham have benefitted from the Amazon series 'All or Nothing'. Amazon also gave German giants FC Bayern Munich their own series - 'FC Bayern - Behind the Legend'.

Other popular series include FX's 'Welcome to Wrexham' and other shows about clubs like Sunderland and Leeds United.

MLS clubs are not all newcomers to producing serialized content. In 2019, Los Angeles FC documented their inaugural season with 'We are LAFC'. This season, the Philadelphia Union are filming and releasing 'The Union Way' as part of the content available to subscribers on MLS Season Pass.

Season Pass has opened up new opportunities for clubs to brand their own image to subscribers and fans both new and old. Each team has produced a 'club profiles' piece that highlights their history in a documentary-style way. 

MLS commissioner Don Garber says that the partnership the league has with Apple allows clubs to do something in the style of 'Drive to Survive' - and use the company's popularity to grow their audience. 

'Every team has the opportunity to do their own 'Drive to Survive' and have the largest technology and most innovative consumer-facing company in the world provide the platform for that,' Garber said. 

'You think about what was so original and engaging and what put F1 on the map in this country … This is going to be a test for our teams. 

'They are required to provide some amount of content, because that's the MLS thing — to centrally ensure that our teams are doing what they need to do to support a collective effort. 

'But I can assure you that the teams that are really, really good will create very innovative, exciting globally interesting content, and that will drive subscribers.' 

In addition to his work at Box to Box, Gay-Rees has won multiple BAFTA awards for his work on documentaries highlighting the life of F1 driver Ayrton Senna and British musician Amy Winehouse. The documentary on Winehouse also won a Grammy Award for Best Music Film and the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film.

'Drive to Survive' won the Sports Emmy award for 'Outstanding Documentary Series - Serialized' in 2022.