Reynolds and Jackman take the Flying Roos to Disney+

Sailing has spent years trying to muscle its way into the mainstream, and it just got its biggest boost yet.

Disney+ has greenlit a docuseries following the BONDS Flying Roos – the Australian SailGP team co-owned by Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds – and if you've watched any sport get the streaming-documentary treatment over the past few years, you'll already be wondering what this could mean for sailing.

The obvious comparison is Drive to Survive, the Netflix series widely credited with detonating Formula One's popularity, particularly in the US. SailGP has clearly been chasing something similar – its own Racing on the Edge series has borrowed more than a few pages from the same script, putting the focus as much on the characters as on the racing itself.

But a Reynolds production landing on Disney+ feels less like Drive to Survive and more like a spiritual sequel to Welcome to Wrexham, the wildly successful docuseries about the Welsh football club Reynolds co-owns. The FX cameras have followed Wrexham for five seasons now, so the man knows the format inside out.

This new series will follow Australia's fastest sailors around the globe as they take on the ever-growing SailGP fleet, all while easing their famous owners into the sport. Leading the team is driver and CEO Tom Slingsby – Olympic gold medallist, America's Cup winner and three-time SailGP champion – which is where the Wrexham parallel starts to break down a bit.

Wrexham was a struggling lower-league club in dire need of rescuing. The Flying Roos need no such thing. They won the first three seasons of SailGP and currently sit top of the Season 6 standings. This isn't an underdog story, but a winning operation that now comes with a pair of Hollywood heavyweights attached.

Reynolds and Jackman are leaning straight into the double act. “This is our first collaboration since Deadpool & Wolverine and we once again anticipate action, comedy, heart but with a lot more water," they said. “And (fingers crossed) pirates. We hope there's pirates in SailGP.”

For all the joking around, there's a serious team behind the camera. The untitled Australian Original is produced by Reynolds' Maximum Effort and Eureka Productions, with Brent Hodge directing and showrunning, and Wrexham executive producer Rob Mac, of 'It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia' fame, on board through his More Better Productions banner.

No release date yet – the series is still untitled, never mind scheduled. But the bigger question is what it might do for sailing as a whole. If it lands even half as well as Wrexham did – or, dare we say it, Drive to Survive – the sport could be in for a very interesting ride. We'll be watching this one closely.