Prime Video has announced a premiere for Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association on 12 February. It is a four-part documentary series that examines the rise and fall of the American Basketball Association and its lasting influence on professional basketball and American sports culture.
Directed by Kenan Kamwana Holley, the series will debut exclusively on Prime Video worldwide. The project arrives as part of Prime Video’s sports slate and coincides with the 50th anniversary of the ABA’s merger with the National Basketball Association in 1976.
Positioned as the first docuseries dedicated entirely to the ABA, Soul Power charts the league’s launch in 1967 and follows its nine-season challenge to the NBA, both on and off the court. While many ABA franchises folded or relocated during that period, the series argues that the league’s influence proved permanent, reshaping the modern game in ways that continue to define basketball today.
The docuseries explores the ABA’s most enduring contributions, including the introduction of the three-point shot, the All-Star Game slam dunk contest, and the eventual absorption of former ABA teams such as the Brooklyn Nets, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers and San Antonio Spurs into the NBA. It also highlights the league’s role in advancing player empowerment, expanding opportunities for women in the business of sports, and elevating the profiles of stars and contributors including Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Spencer Haywood, George Gervin, Rick Barry and George Karl.
Told through the perspectives of former players, cultural figures and historians, Soul Power presents the ABA as more than a failed rival league, framing it instead as a catalyst for innovation whose legacy lives on in today’s NBA.
“The ABA wasn’t just a league—it was a movement,” said Erving, who also serves as an executive producer on the series. “It gave players freedom, creativity, and opportunity at a time when none of that was guaranteed. This series tells that story honestly and it educates people that the game we see today exists because of what we started back then.”
Presented by Prime Video Sports, the docuseries is executive produced by Grammy, Emmy and Academy Award-winner Common, Erving, Todd Lieberman of Hidden Pictures, George Karl and Brett Goldberg of Truth+Media, and Holley via Holley Films. The project also received support from Scott Tarter, Founder and CEO of Lana Sports and Co-Founder and CEO of the Dropping Dimes Foundation, which has provided financial and health support to retired ABA players for more than a decade.
Soul Power is a co-production between Prime Video Sports, Truth+Media, Hidden Pictures and Holley Films, and positions the ABA not as a footnote in basketball history, but as a transformative force whose influence continues to shape the modern game.
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