It’s well-documented that Simone Biles doesn’t really like that athletes are bombarded with questions about “what’s next” in the moments after they’ve achieved their lifelong dreams.
But as she pondered her future after winning gold medals at the 2024 Olympics, and further cementing her legacy as the greatest gymnast of all time, a path began to emerge — toward entertainment.
“Whether I like it or not, I’ve been around the entertainment space for basically my whole professional career. If you asked me when I was younger, I wanted to be a nurse. I wanted to help people. I wanted to be out in the community,” Biles tells Variety about her decision to join the board of Religion of Sports (ROS), the media company founded by NFL legends Tom Brady and Michael Strahan and Emmy-winning documentarian Gotham Chopra.
“I feel like this is such a unique way to still be in the community, to give back, to tell people stories in a positive manner, in a beautiful way,” Biles explains. “I’m always around it, always in it, so why not give other people the platform?”
As for why she decided to align with ROS in particular, Biles already had history with the team. She spent the past five years with them, chronicling her life from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics through the Paris games for the Netflix docuseries “Simone Biles Rising.” Directed by Katie Walsh, the Netflix doc allowed Biles to take back the narrative and tell her story on her terms, delving into the unique pressures she faces as a Black woman performing in an individual sport, plus shining a spotlight on mental wellness.
Then, toward the end of filming, as Biles began to ask herself that pesky question, Chopra and the team offered to help navigate some of the opportunities that were coming her way.
“We’ve had success with Tom and Michael and helping tell their stories — both of them are pretty prolific in terms of what they’ve been able to do outside of their sport, so it just all kind of started to become more logical, that we can create value for each other,” Chopra tells Variety, on a separate Zoom with Religion of Sports CEO Ameeth Sankaran, about those early, informal conversations.
“Simone is so wonderful in so many ways and so open — people saw that side of her in the series. She’s also ambitious, and she is a GOAT. She has conquered the sport, and I think her ambitions off the mat are just as great,” Chopra says. “There’s opportunities all around her that we want to help her seize and participate in.”
So, ROS decided to invite Biles to join the board and serve as a creative collaborator, the first person to do so since the company launched in 2017. Given their strong relationship, it was an easy yes. “They told my story so beautifully. And we want to give others — female athletes, women and just people in general — bigger platforms to tell their stories and for them to narrate them themselves,” Biles says. “We are kind of family now. It’s so nice that they believed in me as Simone, as a person, and then ‘Simone Biles.’”
Of course, ROS has some experience in the storytelling department — creating acclaimed programs including “Aaron Rodgers: Enigma” (Netflix), “In the Arena: Serena Williams (ESPN+), “Kobe Bryant’s Muse” (Showtime), earning four sports Emmys along the way, plus their work on Biles’ projects “Simone Biles Rising” and her Facebook Watch series “Simone Vs. Herself.” The company has also expanded beyond sports with documentaries like Hulu’s “Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story,” as well as collaborations with top talent like Jake Gyllenhaal, Trevor Noah, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
“If I look at the industry and what we have observed over the last eight years of the company, and especially over the last three or four years, in how the market is changing, you have to expand,” Chopra says about the breadth of the partnership. “We do premium, non-scripted content. [Now], we’re moving into scripted. We’re moving into live. We’re working with brands.”
Biles, he notes, has a “powerful brand” unto herself, so the goal is to help her learn to maximize it and navigate the entertainment landscape in a way that feels authentic. “She’s got a long road ahead of her — and an exciting one! We’re just here to help and participate where appropriate,” Chopra says.
Plus, Biles’ perspective is unique. “One, because I’m a female, and two, I’m not on a team sport. I’m self-funded, so it looks a little bit different than theirs would be,” she explains. “I feel like I have a lot of insight to bring in the things that I do advocate for — if somebody wants to tell their story, but say they have ADHD, or they were a foster kid, like me, I know the comfortability that you’ll need [to tell it].”
Sankaran concurs: “She, in a lot of ways, allows us to open up a new category, to look through her eyes at mental wellness, Black and brown communities, female stories and empowerment, things she’s really, authentically passionate about, which is not overlapping with Tom or Michael, and, frankly, a lot of others that we work with. That, combined with an appetite and interest for her to be curious, and for us to want to expand beyond purely unscripted storytelling into potentially scripted [or] live events and other areas, it was a good time for us to expand with her.”
The partnership is in the ideation phase right now, and there’s no restrictions of the type of content they will eventually create, so there’s opportunity for projects that feature Biles on camera and others where she’ll facilitate other people’s stories.
“[WNBA star] Angel Reese has such a beautiful story to be told, so does [track champion] Sha’Carri Richardson, and I’m looking forward to what’s next,” Biles says, listing a few athletes on her wish list. “I know I hate that question when people ask me — but still. Following their stories and following their journey to whatever the next may be — even if that’s still competing in sports right now — I think that’d be absolutely incredible.”
That brings us to the most important question: does this mean Biles is retiring from competitive gymnastics?
The press release announcing Biles’ new role makes it clear that the partnership represents “a natural evolution of Biles’ entrepreneurial and storytelling journey, expanding her influence beyond her competitive career in the gym — regardless of whether she competes again.”
When I point out the disclaimer, Biles smiles and replies, “Exactly.” And that’s all there is to say about that.
