Deranger math is “Prince Harry & Meghan got a $100 million Netflix contract in 2020, and if Netflix doesn’t renew the contract in 2025, the Sussexes will be broke!” That has been the raison d’etre of the British tabloids for five years: to somehow engineer “Harry & Meghan need lose all of their money!” They’re tried screaming about their money, they’ve tried shaming Harry for “writing a bestseller” and “selling out his horrible family.” They’ve mocked every single thing Harry and Meghan have done. And they still believe, in their tiny little peabrains, that the Sussexes are just one Daily Mail column away from being broke and having no other option than “crawling back to the UK and begging to do royal work.” Speaking of, did you know that the British papers published “bad reviews” of Polo, the Netflix series? Well, now the Mail is speaking to some guy who says, for sure, the bad reviews mean that Netflix won’t renew their contract with the Sussexes, and you know what that means!
UK brand and culture expert Nick Ede has revealed that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Polo may be the ‘nail in the coffin’ for their £80million Netflix deal. Prince Harry, 40, who served as an executive producer alongside Meghan, 43, promised the series, released globally this week, would showcase the ‘true depth and spirit of the sport’ as well as the ‘intensity of its high-stakes moments’.
However, the five-part docuseries, which centres around the build-up to the polo World Cup in Florida and mainly focuses on players such as Adolfo and Poroto Cambiaso, Timmy Dutta, and Nacho Figueras, struggled to impress critics. It’s a reality that Ede considers threatening for the Sussex’s Netflix deal, he told MailOnline: ‘The new polo documentary hasn’t received good reviews, and this is another foray into producing from Meghan and Harry. All eyes will be on whether the show rates and makes the very important top ten. It could, like the Invictus documentary, start well due to the public’s fascination with the pair and with polo potentially. But it’s more than likely to [fare] badly when up against blockbusters like Black Dove and safe Lindsay Lohan Christmas films.’
‘This could potentially be a nail in the coffin for their deal with the streaming giant who now use algorithms to make sure their programming is perfect for their subscribers.’
The series hardly features Harry and Meghan and has been nicknamed ‘the Nacho show’ behind the scenes because it focuses primarily on the Argentinian player – another drawback for Ede. He said: ‘With very little airtime, we don’t get to see the pair much and also hardly any PR around the series, this looks like it’s Oh No! Rather than Polo!’
The brand expert concluded: ‘We are still waiting for the new food show from Meghan and with the hype around this new show simmering rather than boiling, TV bosses will be starting to get worried about their big investment.’
I haven’t watched the entire series, but Nacho is just providing commentary and explaining the sport and the characters. It’s called color commentary and he’s good at it, but no, it’s not The Nacho Show. Despite the predictable “bad reviews” in the British outlets, I get the feeling that most haters have greeted Polo with disappointment – Harry & Meghan aren’t centered in the series, it’s built around interesting (but barely-known) professional polo players and it’s set up like a standard sports docuseries, meaning sports-centered soap operas and Real Housewife-esque family moments. I’m saying that as a compliment – it’s a slick, well-done series which is very watchable. Now, will it be another sports docuseries success like Full Swing, or will it bomb like Break Point? Possibly somewhere in-between – Break Point sucked because the people working on it didn’t give a sh-t about tennis or what was actually happening on the tour. Full Swing worked because of the drama, personalities and authentic relationships.
As for the Sussexes’ Netflix contract… I’ve seen some suggestions that Harry and Meghan actually want to move on to other things. I don’t know. Given Meghan’s cooking show and how American Riviera Orchard is being built around it, I suspect that Meghan actually wants to stay with Netflix. Whatever happens, I hope they learn how to promote their damn projects.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Netflix.
