Are shows like At Home With The Furys a way of luring men into watching reality TV?

‘At Home with the Furys’ is the latest in a recent spate of behind-the-scenes reality shows about sporting legends, offering banal, sometimes inane, glimpses of their domestic life. But, asks Nick Hilton, how well do these shows serve the male viewers they seem designed to attract?

Tyson Fury in new Netflix series ‘At Home with the Furys’ (Netflix)

Morecambe Bay: home of Britain’s second largest natural gas field, the rare brown fritillary butterfly, and an art deco hotel that your auntie will recognise from a 1989 episode of ITV’s Poirot. Oh, and also Clan Fury, a rambunctious family of giants led by the instantly recognisable heavyweight boxer, Tyson.

This is the backdrop to At Home with the Furys, a new nine-part Netflix series that lets viewers peek behind the tasselled curtains of the Furys’ Lancashire McMansion, as Tyson tries (and fails) to deal with retirement. After taking his kids on a “jolly boys’ day in Morecambe Bay”, where they sip coffee and pose for photos with tourists, Tyson soon finds himself drawn back into the ring and the promise of a “trilogy” fight with Derek Chisora. Getting smacked in the chops in front of 60,000 people is, the show argues, easier for Tyson than forcing his unruly brood to have toast for breakfast or wear age-appropriate clothing.

On the surface, At Home with the Furys looks just like the next instalment in streaming media’s obsession with shows that offer insight into the sporting mind. For Netflix, it follows in the wake of Drive to Survive (Formula One), Break Point (tennis), Tour de France: Unchained (cycling) and Full Swing (golf). Over on Disney+, Welcome to Wrexham has followed the exploits of Ryan Reynolds’ ownership of the Welsh football club, while Amazon has its market leading All or Nothing series about Premier League football (not to mention the Tyne-Wear duet of Sunderland ’Til I Die and We Are Newcastle United). Box to Box Films, the British company behind many of these shows, has recently announced a $30m fundraising round.