Netflix’s Crew Girl has created an unusual problem for rowing.
Actual rowers seem to hate the rowing.
On Reddit, former rowers and coxswains have criticized everything from the opening race to the way the athletes behave around the boathouse.
One former high school coxswain called the rowing “laughably bad.”
Another viewer said the opening race almost made them turn the show off immediately.
And yet, many of them kept watching.
That raises a much more interesting question:
What if a bad rowing show turns out to be good for rowing?
Rowers Are Tearing the Show Apart
Spend a few minutes in Reddit’s rowing community and you quickly discover that Crew Girl has become something of a punching bag.
Viewers with actual experience in the sport have been pointing out technical mistakes, unrealistic races and scenes that feel completely disconnected from real rowing culture.
One Reddit thread effectively turned into a group hate-watch.
Another former coxswain made it all the way to Episode 7 despite describing the experience as suffering.
Someone replied with perhaps the funniest explanation:
That determination to finish the show was itself “true rowing mentality.”
But beneath all the jokes is something important.
Rowers are talking about a Netflix teen drama.
And people who knew almost nothing about rowing are listening.
Rowing Suddenly Has a Giant Netflix Advertisement
Rowing has a visibility problem.
Compared with football, basketball or baseball, relatively few mainstream dramas are built around the sport.
Even Crew Girl star Kyle Clark acknowledged this before the series premiered, saying there simply haven’t been many shows involving rowing.
Netflix has now put the sport at the center of an eight-episode YA drama available to viewers around the world.
The show introduces audiences to boats, coxswains, racing, erg training and the intense teamwork required to move an eight-person shell.
Netflix even published its own beginner’s guide explaining how crew works.
That is a remarkable amount of mainstream exposure for a sport many viewers may never have watched before.
The Audience Rowing Needs May Not Be Rowers
This is where the criticism becomes slightly ironic.
Crew Girl was never really made for experienced rowers.
Its ingredients are obvious:
an elite prep school,
a talented outsider,
wealthy families,
two attractive boys,
rivalries,
romance,
and a love triangle.
Rowing gives all of that a fresh setting.
And that may be exactly why the show could introduce the sport to people who would never deliberately watch a rowing documentary.
A teenage viewer may begin Crew Girl because she wants to know whether Teagan chooses Josh or Cam.
But eight episodes later, she also knows what a coxswain is.
She has seen an erg.
She understands that rowing requires synchronization.
And she may even wonder whether there is a rowing club near her.
That is where entertainment can do something accuracy alone sometimes cannot.
It can make an unfamiliar sport look interesting.
Does a Sports Drama Need to Be Accurate to Help the Sport?
Hollywood has been doing this for decades.
Most people do not learn sports from movies.
But movies and television can create curiosity about sports.
A viewer does not need to understand every technical detail to think:
“That looks fun.”
This creates an uncomfortable trade-off for actual athletes.
A perfectly accurate rowing drama that nobody watches does little to expand rowing’s audience.
An inaccurate Netflix romance watched by millions may irritate experienced rowers — but introduce thousands of new people to the sport.
Which one is ultimately more valuable?
There is no simple answer.
Even the Cast Wants People to Try Rowing
Interestingly, the people making Crew Girl seem very aware of rowing’s niche status.
Netflix released an entire feature in which the cast explains the sport to newcomers.
Miku Martineau, who plays Teagan, encouraged viewers to try rowing and described it as a sport that builds confidence.
Clark said viewers could discover a “wonderful team sport” through the series.
So while fans may be watching for romance, Netflix is clearly comfortable using the show to introduce rowing itself.
And Season 2 could push that even further.
Season 2 Creates an Even Bigger Opportunity
Netflix renewed Crew Girl only 12 days after its September 10 premiere.
The series debuted in Netflix’s English TV Top 10 and remained there through its second week.
There is also an important change coming inside the story.
Season 1 begins with Teagan discovering that Easton Prep has no girls’ rowing team.
By the end of the season, Brittany has started one.
Netflix is already teasing the possibility that Teagan may return to rowing herself rather than remaining only the boys’ coxswain.
That means Season 2 has an opportunity Season 1 largely missed:
actually showing young women rowing together.
For a series called Crew Girl, that could matter.
Maybe the Rowers’ Anger Is Part of the Success
There is another funny possibility.
The rowing mistakes themselves are generating publicity.
Real rowers watch clips and explain what is wrong.
Coaches react.
Former coxswains complain.
Reddit threads fill up.
People who have never rowed suddenly learn the correct way something should have been done.
In other words, the criticism becomes educational content.
Crew Girl gets something wrong.
A real rower explains why.
Someone else learns something about rowing.
Netflix still gets another conversation about Crew Girl.
That is not necessarily the publicity rowing purists wanted.
But it is publicity.
A Bad Rowing Show Could Still Create Real Rowers
Nobody needs to pretend Crew Girl is a documentary.
Real rowers are perfectly justified in laughing at scenes that make no sense to them.
But sporting culture does not grow only through perfect representation.
Sometimes it grows because a kid sees something on television and thinks:
“I want to try that.”
And that is why Crew Girl creates such an interesting contradiction.
The people who know rowing best may be the people most frustrated by the series.
But the people who know rowing least may be the ones it matters to most.
So perhaps the real test of Crew Girl won’t happen on Netflix.
It will happen months from now, at local rowing clubs and school teams.
If even a small number of girls pick up an oar because they first came for Josh and Cam, was all that terrible rowing actually worth it?