The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Polo series is now streaming on Netflix. Harry and Meghan still have not done one iota of promotion for a series they appear in (however briefly) and executive produced. Many Sussex-supporters tend to assume that everything Harry & Meghan do or don’t do is the right decision and then justify the Sussexes’ decisions working from that premise. But it’s really bonkers that the Sussexes aren’t doing even minor promotion for their Netflix docuseries. Last year, Prince Harry absolutely should have given interviews to support Heart of Invictus. This month, Harry and Meghan should have given interviews and hosted a screening for Polo. They have not. Instead of any of that, Polo’s showrunner Miloš Balać gave a lengthy interview to People Mag about the Sussexes’ involvement. Why can’t the Sussexes speak of their involvement themselves? I will never understand their media strategies, truly.
Miloš Balać says the Sussexes had a vision: “They were wonderful. They were extremely hands-on. They really had a vision for trying to get polo to be accessible to a wider audience. Prince Harry knows the sport inside and out. To be able to have him as someone to bounce ideas off of and then also to get notes from… ‘Maybe if you edit it like this, the polo will just feel even more exciting. Or you got to make sure that the point is played out like this because that’s how you keep it factually accurate.’ To have a polo expert in-house with him was so special. I think a lot of projects have EPs that can give great notes, but it’s rare that you have someone who’s truly an expert in the subject that you are documenting.”
Harry was important in bringing in the Cambiasos: Balać tells PEOPLE that Prince Harry hoped (as the larger team did) to bring in Adolfo and Poroto Cambiaso, a father and son set of polo stars. Adolfo is esteemed as one of the best polo players of all time, while his 17-year-old son is an emerging talent. “I think his hope from very early on, which was all of our hopes, is that the Cambiaso’s would be interested and willing to participate because of how much they mean in this world and to the sport and how much they’ve contributed as a whole,” Balać says. “On top of that, just having the incredible story that they have as a father-son duo that have played side by side for so long and [spoiler alert!] were finally playing against each other. So it was definitely early on it was like, ‘Let’s try and get the Cambiasos,’ was something he put on my to-do list and we were able to do it, so that was a great payoff.”
Meghan loved watching polo: “I think I spoke to them before I ever went to a polo match and it was [Meghan] who really prepped me for how wonderfully casual polo can be,” Balać tells PEOPLE about the Duchess of Sussex’s specific idea for the series. “Sunday polo on Field One at the U.S. Polo Center is a big to-do where people have champagne brunches and come with their beautiful outfits. But the rest of the week, every polo match is actually so down to earth. It’s a lot of people pulling up in their pickup trucks and their cowboy boots, if not barefoot, with their dogs and their families and their kids to watch the game that they love. They’re there not to see and be seen, but to enjoy the sport that they really care about and people show up to that for free and you just pull up and she said that that’s what she loves.”
Meghan loves tailgating: “She also loves tailgating at a polo match, and that just sort of set a lightbulb in my head where I was like, ‘Oh, this world is really not going to be what I think it is, in a good way,” the showrunner continues. “And we were able to then dig deeper into all the ways that it isn’t what people assume it is.”
Harry’s friendship with Ignacio “Nacho” Figueras: “They really are great friends. That much is beyond obvious. When Prince Harry happened to be along for the Sentebale charity match, which we featured, just seeing them together at the polo field was infectious,” he says. “It’s like two buddies who really love each other and love the sport together having a great time and raising money for a good cause was just such a good vibe day. And Nacho really is just a wonderful, lovely human. So anytime he’s around is a good time.”
Harry & Meghan are great collaborators: “Working with them was definitely special. I think they were amazing collaborators that brought so much energy and passion to the project as a whole. Polo is one of Prince Harry’s greatest passions. It seems that Meghan has adopted it as one of hers too, just in terms of being his partner,” Balać tells PEOPLE. “She also loves the sport, and it was really fun to talk to her about what she loves about [it]. And Harry comes at it from the athlete perspective, so it was great to have both of those perspectives to help inform how I would go about sharing this world.”
This is all really nice, but again, it would be better hearing from Harry and Meghan. Meghan should be talking to Variety or Deadline about her love of polo-tailgating. Harry and Nacho should be giving interviews side-by-side in which they hype the sport and the series. But instead, Miloš Balać is the one carrying the promotion on his back alone – he’s also given interviews to the NY Post and Variety, and the bulk of the conversation is about Harry and Meghan’s involvement in the series. I don’t know if anyone on the Archewell team reads this lil’ blog, but please convince Harry and Meghan to actually promote their Netflix projects.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Netflix.