Published Feb 4, 2026, 12:30 PM EST
Shealyn Scott is a Senior Writer at Screen Rant. She has been writing for the site since 2024, focused on network, reality, streaming, and classic television.
A creative writer, journalist, and lover of the written word in all its forms, Shealyn enjoys deconstructing scenes from her favorite shows, using context clues and historical precedent to predict major plot points (which, due to her successful track record, has sparked rumors of clairvoyancy).
As an award-winning student journalist, Shealyn spent her college years advocating for the humanities while studying English Literature. Her love of storytelling propelled her to expand her degree with minors in Writing and History, believing life to be a mere collection of stories that can be framed in as many ways as a movie scene.
As a Senior member of the TV Team, Shealyn treats the series she covers like books, analyzing every line, camera angle, and lighting choice. Thankfully, her personal mission statement lines up perfectly with Screen Rant: every creative work deserves just as much thought from the viewer as it received from its creator.
The best K-dramas introduce viewers to full-fledged main characters with unique ambitions, hopes, and dreams — including a love of sports. Whether it’s an iconic K-drama male lead who devotes his free time to his athletic passion or an overlooked protagonist who works towards her goals, sporty Korean dramas often use athletics as a mirror for character development and underlying themes.
What truly makes sports stories so appealing, however, is how easily they blend into other sub-genres. Whether it’s a gripping thriller or a heartwarming K-drama romance, sports can run parallel to major plot points, with a dedicated character working towards a grand championship or challenge that can only be overcome after their personal hero’s journey has come to an end.
20 Triple
2009
Since it debuted in 2009, it’s no surprise that Triple utilizes many aspects of a classic K-drama plot. After living in solitude for five years, Lee Ha-ru (Min Hyo-rin) moves to Seoul to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a figure skater.
Her support system is composed of multiple messy love triangles, with her stepbrother Shin Hwal (Lee Jung-jae) acting as her primary caretaker. While the skating itself has an intriguing narrative, Ha-ru’s uncomfortable feelings for a man twice her age are hard for a modern audience to digest.
19 Heading to the Ground
2009
Heading to the Ground may be one of the oldest K-dramas on the list, but it follows a timeless plot. The main character, Cha Bong-gun (Jung Yun-ho), is a superfan for the Manchester United soccer/football team.
After a chance encounter with up-and-coming sports agent Kang Hae-bin (Go Ara), Bong-gun gets the opportunity to chase his dream of becoming a star soccer player himself. Sadly, the series was panned upon release, but many K-drama fans nonetheless enjoy the nearly 20-year-old title as a low-stakes guilty pleasure.
18 Head Over Heels
2025
Head Over Heels is a stellar coming-of-age romance with a supernatural twist. The K-drama about living a double life centers on Park Seong-ah (Cho Yi-hyun), a young woman who moonlights as a mystical shaman. When she falls for a doomed classmate named Bae Gyeon-woo (Choo Young-woo), Seong-ah vows to change his fate.
The sports element comes in thanks to Gyeon-woo’s spot on the school archery team. Head Over Heels is undeniably one of the most successful romantic fantasy K-dramas of the past decade, but the compelling sports subplot was a footnote at best.
17 Puck!
2016
Despite consisting of just two episodes, Puck! packs a mighty punch. The main character, Jo Jun-man (Lee Kwang-soo), reluctantly turned to a life of extortion, working as a loan shark to pay off his wife’s debt.
When a college hockey coach fails to pay up, Jun-man infiltrates the team itself. What follows is nothing short of a life-changing epiphany, as Jun-man’s investment in the hockey team’s success quickly grows beyond his professional concern as a violent enforcer.
16 My Lovely Boxer
2023
My Lovely Boxer takes an immensely refreshing approach to its central athlete. Rather than a wide-eyed ingénue or naive hopeful, Lee Kwon-sook (Kim So-hye) already had her time in the limelight, having previously debuted as a 17-year-old boxing phenom.
When Kwon-sook is roped back into the world of competitive boxing, she’s forced to balance her own values and new foes hiding around every corner, threatening to end her comeback career prematurely with illegal match-fixing and other ruthless schemes.
15 Just Dance
2018
When K-dramas are set in school, there’s a certain loftiness to the student characters, which demands a sense of passion that only youth can provide. Rather than dream of becoming famous idols or A-list actors, however, the cast of Just Dance hopes to one day win on the competitive ballroom scene.
Dancing is by far one of the most underutilized sports in K-drama history, but Just Dance is full of heart, due in part to its real-life inspiration: a 2017 documentary about young but determined aspiring dancesport stars.
14 Short
2018
Helmed by industry favorites Kang Tae-oh (Kang Ho-young) and Park Eun-ho (Yeo Hoe-hyun), Short is, fittingly, a miniseries following two speed skaters who couldn’t be more different. Ho-young was poached by an elite coach in the wild, while Hoe-hyun has been at the top for years.
Despite the inherent rivalry between the two, Ho-young and Hoe-hyun quickly bond over their shared struggles and become true friends. Of course, there are common K-drama conflicts like a contrived love triangle, but when Short zeroes in on its skating, it’s magic on ice.
13 Love All Play
2022
Love All Play echoes this sentimentality of two opposing athletes and uses it for the foundation of a thrilling romance. Park Tae-yang (Park Ju-hyun) inherited the dreams of her Olympic medalist older sister and, as a result, is obsessed with competitive badminton.
Conversely, Park Tae-joon (Chae Jong-hyeop) feels no passion for his sport — or anything in general, for that matter. When he and Tae-yang are forced to work together and aim for the mixed doubles championship, however, everything changes for both athletes.
12 Good Boy
2025
K-dramas about sports typically fall into one of two categories: prospective athletes working towards a trophy or former athletes filled with bittersweet regret over their retirement.
In stark contrast, Good Boy takes former Olympians — who specialized in fencing, shooting, boxing, wrestling, and discus throwing — and connects them with a common goal: fighting crime. The comic book feel and impressive action sequences only bolster the creative premise.
11 Racket Boys
2021
Racket Boys has all the stakes of a typical sports drama and sets it against the backdrop of a K-drama small town. For one young player, the culture shock of moving from the big city to the countryside is only the tip of the iceberg.
In order to save his father’s job as the coach of a failing middle school badminton team, the young athlete picks up his racket to rally the troops. Unsurprisingly, it’s one of the most wholesome sports K-dramas ever created.
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