The issue with sports manga is one of execution being the only thing which a sports manga can use to get interest.
There is a very limited pool of ideas which comes with sports manga. Nearly all of them have the same basic narrative structure of "Team Assembles, Some Initial Matches, Prefecture Tournament, Nationals" and are set at high-schools with an often struggling team. That's a pretty basic template, and there's only so far you can stretch the basics until it becomes unrecognizable.
To recap all the sport successes since the end of Slam Dunk, sans Rising Impact, Whistle and Hinomaru:
-Hikaru no Go: Had basically the same base appeal of Slam Dunk in "discovering" a lesser known sport with the protagonist. Being a board game, it was also new territory for Jump.
-Rookies: Established author work which was more about the daily lives of the team over the intense dramatics. Was generally for a more mature audience.
-Prince of Tennis: Extremely flashy and extravagant, was basically what made sports manga so associated with fujoshi.
-Eyeshield 21: Very exaggerated and extreme without "technically" breaking reality. Had some of the best artwork in the industry at the time.
-Kuroko's Basketball: More or less an attempt to marry Slam Dunk and Prince of Tennis' styles into one manga.
-Haikyu: More or less a complete refinement of the entire genre up to this point, refocusing on character drama and a realistic depiction of the sport while retaining the expanded character dynamics and visual imagery.
The basic underlying thing with all of these is that, until Haikyu, they were basically finding ways to bend the build Slam Dunk used, leading to different ideas on the concepts that were both good (expanded focus on the members of various teams) and bad (ridiculously exaggerated character motivations and special moves). Haikyu can be seen as culmination of sorts towards this idea, refocusing on the most acclaimed aspects of the genre while discarding the stuff which attracts mockery. It's very comparable to HeroAca in how it's both accessible to new readers and strong in quality.
The question then becomes, where do we go from here? What exactly can be done to expand sport as a genre at this point. Curious what people think, because I sure don't know.
