Friday Night Lights is an American sports drama television series developed by Peter Berg and inspired by the 1990 nonfiction book by H. G. Bissinger, which was adapted as the 2004 film of the same name by Berg. Executive producers were Brian Grazer, David Nevins, Sarah Aubrey and Jason Katims who also served as showrunner. The series follows a high school football team in the fictional town of Dillon, a small, close-knit community in rural West Texas. It features an ensemble cast led by Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, portraying high school football coach Eric Taylor and his wife Tami Taylor, a school faculty member. The primary cast includes characters associated with football and high school. The show uses its small-town backdrop to address many issues in contemporary American culture like family values, school funding, racism, substance use, abortion and lack of economic opportunities.

Peter Berg is an American director, producer, writer, and actor. His directorial film works include the black comedy Very Bad Things (1998), the action comedy The Rundown (2003), the sports drama Friday Night Lights (2004), the action thriller The Kingdom (2007), the superhero comedy-drama Hancock (2008), the military science fiction war film Battleship (2012), the war film Lone Survivor (2013), the disaster drama Deepwater Horizon (2016), the Boston Marathon bombing drama Patriots Day (2016), the action thriller Mile 22 (2018), and the action comedy Spenser Confidential (2020), the latter five all starring Mark Wahlberg. In addition to cameo appearances in the last six of these titles, he has had prominent acting roles in films including Never on Tuesday (1989), Shocker (1989), The Last Seduction (1994), The Great White Hype (1996), Cop Land (1997), Corky Romano (2001), Collateral (2004), Smokin' Aces (2006), and Lions for Lambs (2007).