Sports Romance Books: Where Competition Meets Chemistry

We all know romance fiction is known for its powerful emotional intensity. But what is it about this athletic subgenre that has pushed it so far into the spotlight of late? Is it the added intensity of competition between rivals? The blood, sweat, and tears of a winner-takes-all tournament? The high stakes of winning versus losing?

Everyone is talking about the TV show Heated Rivalry—the queer ice-hockey romance that’s become a word-of-mouth sensation, based on Rachel Reid’s New York Times bestselling Game Changers book series.

Sport-centric romance stories involve ambition, vulnerability, rivalry, and love under pressure. Their recent surge in popularity has been fueled not only by bestselling novels (often part of a multi-volume series) but by screen adaptations that have propelled these athletic love stories into the big leagues.

On the blog today, editor Emily Kitchin takes a closer look at this trend in romantic fiction, exploring why readers are drawn to these stories and what fiction writers can learn from this winning combination of tension, character, and heart.

Rachel Reid and the Heated Rivalry effect

Heated Rivalry follows the decade-long forbidden romance between NHL stars Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, during which their sworn enmity on the ice masks their intensely passionate private relationship. Blending steamy, highly explicit sex scenes and intense competition, the show has been getting viewers hot under the collar all over the world, turning its leads into stars and garnering praise for its “ground-breaking” depiction of queer relationships and intimate, character-driven storytelling.

The TV show’s success has had a pronounced impact on Reid’s book series, too. According to Publishers Weekly, weekly print sales of the book shot up more than 8,000% between November 30, 2025—right after the show premiered—and January 17, 2026, per Circana BookScan. Sales of other books in the Game Changers series also rose nearly 4,000% in the period, cementing Reid’s position as a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author.

All this has led to a general explosion of interest in novels categorized as sports romance: i.e., in which at least one of the main characters is heavily involved in professional sports—most likely as a player but possibly as a team staff member, agent, or journalist—and where the novel’s romance arc takes place against a backdrop of a high-stakes competition.

However, while there’s undoubtedly been a resurgence of interest and sales, this subgenre is far from new. It’s been growing as a category for several years. According to Circana BookScan data, romance was the leading growth category for the total print book market in the U.S.A. in 2025, and sports romance alone enjoyed triple-digit growth last year. (These figures were cited before Heated Rivalry’s impact on the market.)

Romance on the ice rink

There are some key examples to explore in this trend.

Elle Kennedy’s Off Campus series, a successful set of New Adult stories focusing on a tight-knit group of college-age hockey players, was originally self-published in 2015 before Sourcebooks acquired the rights in 2021. According to Publishers Weekly, the series has sold 1.3 million copies across five books (and sales of the series have enjoyed a nice boost since a certain TV show aired, growing by more than 125%).

Hannah Grace’s Icebreaker, the first in the Maple Hills series, charts the passionate relationship between an ice-hockey player and a professional figure skater, and is another huge novel in the genre. Originally self-published, the rights were picked up by Simon & Schuster after it went viral on TikTok, and it was published in 2023 in the U.K., eventually knocking TikTok behemoth Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us off the top spot in the charts.

Other major pioneers of the genre include Stephanie Archer, Liz Tomforde, Helena Hunting, Bal Khabra, Simone Soltani, and Sarina Bowen, among many others.

Desire hits track and field

It’s true that many of the big hitters in this subgenre feature ice hockey (seen as the “bad boy” of sport due to its fast pace and the high contact level of the gameplay), but the genre is broad. Many other types of sport feature on the page too, including (but certainly not limited to) football, baseball, basketball, swimming, motor racing, tennis, and even golf.

When the main characters’ journeys are tightly tied to the intensity of the game, it creates an explosive environment in which emotions—and chemistry!—are heightened, putting everything on the line.

Chloe Walsh’s Binding 13, the first in the bestselling Boys of Tommen series, is centered around rugby, for example.

Lauren Asher’s Dirty Air series is set in the high-stakes, male-dominated world of Formula 1 racing.

Why true love performs so well on the field

Let’s get into why this genre is proving so popular with the romance audience.

Firstly, the high-adrenaline, high-pressure environment of athletic championships provides the perfect stakes for the novel. These settings are packed with competition, rivalries, hope, loss, team dynamics, and so on. When the main characters’ journeys are tightly tied to the intensity of the game, it creates an explosive environment in which emotions—and chemistry!—are heightened, putting everything on the line.

Ice hockey’s dominance in the genre could be partly attributable to the fact that it offers a pronounced “brutal versus soft” contrast, wherein the aggression, hypermasculinity, and pace of the gameplay are juxtaposed with the softer, caring nature of the athlete(s) off the rink.

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The perfect place for tropes 

There’s also an agreement among readers and publishers that sport-centric romance lends itself beautifully to the most beloved of romantic tropes: enemies (or teammates) to lovers, grumpy/sunshine, the striking of a fake-dating deal, slow burn, forced proximity, and forbidden romance (e.g., a player and a coach, or players from opposing teams).

There can often be a heart-warming “found family” theme in these books too, due to the team-based nature of the settings. Athletic heroes, champions, and even underdogs work well with the “alpha male” and “hot athlete” tropes and are often characterized as being dominant, dedicated, talented, capable, and passionate.

Prominent tropes in Hannah Grace’s Icebreaker, for example, are forced proximity (the hockey player and the figure skater are forced to share a rink) and reverse grumpy/sunshine (i.e., the female character is grumpy and the male character is sunny).

Another example can be seen in Liz Tomforde’s Mile High, which has a strong enemies-to-lovers trope (an arrogant NHL star falls for the new flight attendant on his team’s private plane).

Stephanie Archer’s Behind the Net includes grumpy/sunshine and forced proximity, as well as “spicy lessons.” This is where one of the lead characters agrees to “teach” the other character about something sexy—how to kiss, how to be good in bed, and so on—and in doing so, the teacher/pupil dynamic turns into a swoon-worthy romance.

The prominence of these tropes mean that this subgenre is, of course, hugely popular on TikTok and frequently associated with various BookTok trends. Authors often see huge success on the platform, sometimes through self-publishing before their novels are acquired by traditional publishers and their book sales are amplified yet further.

At the time of writing, the hashtag #sportsromance has over 3.2 billion views on TikTok, #sportsromancebook has over 1.1 billion, and #hockeyromance has over 3.3 billion.

The progressive world of sport-based romance 

The genre is also seen as increasingly progressive and inclusive, evolving beyond traditional and heteronormative romance to feature an ever-broadening range of diverse protagonists.

Rachel Reid’s success is already leading to a huge surge in demand for queer sports romances, along with books by writers such as Meryl Wilsner (Cleat Cute), Kelly Quindlen (She Drives Me Crazy), and Tal Bauer (The Jock), all of whom write queer romance. Also notable is K.T. Hoffman’s The Prospects, which features an openly trans baseball player.

Other books (including the previously mentioned Mile High by Liz Tomforde, In the Zone by Catherine Gayle, and 40-Love by Olivia Dade) are notable for their inclusion of body positivity storylines, banishing the assumption that athleticism must equal a certain type of appearance.

Meanwhile, characters with physical disabilities or chronic medical conditions feature across a growing collection of these novels, including Lauren Asher’s Redeemed, Leah Brunner’s Betrothal or Breakaway, and Elle Sprinkle’s Like a Power Play, to name just a few.

Get your head in the game: how to write sports romance 

If you’re interested in turning your hand to this subgenre, there are a few things to bear in mind.

1. Know your game

Do your research on your chosen game or championship, and make sure you know the difference between a face-off and a power play. The training, games, and competition need to be realistic, vibrant, and compelling parts of the plot.

As in any genre, wear your research lightly and use it to inform your narrative, but without making it feel so info-heavy that it obscures the plot and characters. Try not to overload your book with technical and statistical detail!

2. Ensure tension occurs on and off the clock

Be sure to create high stakes away from the track/court/field as well as on it.

• How do the game stakes tie firmly into the personal and emotional stakes for your characters?
• How can you leverage the high-pressure environment and any rivalries to raise them further?

This will help add conflict and tension to your book, which is key to creating a satisfying romance arc where the main characters must overcome hurdles in order to get to the HEA (happily ever after).

• Is a baseball player’s reputation under threat? And what if his romance with a team assistant is exposed—will he be kicked out?
• Is a tennis player struggling with an injury and their sexy coach is trying to help heal them—but both their careers will be on the line if the next competition is lost?

3. Remember why so many readers love romance

Feel free to lean into established tropes (if that feels fun for you, of course, and natural to your idea). As we’ve covered, readers of these books welcome tropes, and they lend themselves very well to the genre.

• Could a standoffish basketball captain who’s nursing a painful secret begin a forbidden romance with her coach?
• Could a star soccer player fall into an enemies-to-lovers arc with the journalist who’s been writing scathing articles about them?

There are so many scenarios to dream up: you really can let your imagination run wild!

For writers, these stories offer a unique way to blend story structure with narrative freedom. A clear external goal on the field, the rink, or the race track can be paired with deeply resonant emotional arcs outside of it.

For readers, this genre continues to prove an incredibly satisfying way to escape for a few hours into a championship where love is the ultimate prize. Just don’t forget to pack your water bottle before you head out there!

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