General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Sin City Saints

Sin City Saints is an American comedy television series that premiered on Yahoo Screen on March 23, 2015, set in the front office of a fictional Las Vegas professional basketball expansion team. The show follows Jake Tullus, a Silicon Valley mogul who had always dreamed of owning a professional basketball franchise yet soon discovers the venture exceeds his abilities, along with the team of people he gathers to operate Las Vegas' first pro sports franchise.¹ All eight episodes of the single season were released simultaneously on the day of premiere.²

Key fact	Detail
Original run	March 23, 2015, all 8 episodes released the same day on Yahoo Screen²
Created by	Chris Case, Bryan Gordon, and Michael Tollin³
Production company	Mandalay Sports Media, its first scripted series⁴
Premise	Front office of a fictional Las Vegas pro basketball expansion team, the Saints¹
Lead cast	Andrew Santino (Jake Tullus), Malin Akerman (Dusty Halford), Tom Arnold (Kevin Freeman)¹
Episode length	About 23 minutes per episode¹
Financial outcome	Yahoo wrote off $42 million in expenses related to Community, Sin City Saints, and Other Space⁵

Spoilers

Premise and characters

The series follows the triumphs, travails, and transgressions of the Saints, Las Vegas' brand-new professional basketball franchise. Andrew Santino plays Jake Tullus, the team's unpredictable and charismatic owner, who made his fortune as an Internet disruptor in the field of Big Data.⁶ In an interview with VH1, Santino described the character as "Mark Cuban brain and Donald Sterling action," meaning a smart guy who often says dumb, inappropriate things.⁷

Malin Akerman plays Dusty Halford, a Stanford-educated lawyer who serves as special assistant to the league commissioner and is sent to oversee the operation, which the league views as out of control and reckless.⁶^•⁷ Tom Arnold plays Kevin Freeman, a private casino host who knows all the city's secrets.⁶ The regular cast also includes Keith Powers as star player LaDarius Pope, Justin Chon as Byron Summers, B.K. Cannon as Melissa Stanton, Toby Huss as Coach Doug, and Ryan Cartwright as Wade.⁸

Former NBA players appear in acting roles: Rick Fox plays Sam Johnson and Baron Davis plays Billy Crane.¹ For Davis, then a 35-year-old free agent, it was his first recurring role on a television show; he told TheWrap, "I've had cameos, but this is the first time I was part of the cast."⁴

Episodes

All eight episodes carry the air date March 23, 2015, because Yahoo released the full season at once:⁸

"The Fool Monty" – an incident threatens the Saints' season, and the league sends Dusty Halford to oversee Jake.⁶
"Smoke and Mirrors" – an old issue resurfaces for Jake; Byron and Sam try to convince a retired player to return.⁶
"Gone Catfishing" – LaDarius falls in love with a woman he met online.⁶
"Mrs. Wu's Tang" – a Chinese basketball star visits Las Vegas, and Jake and Dusty use different methods to recruit him.⁶
"A Basket Full of Rainbows" – leaked cell phone footage of a Coach Doug locker room rant divides Jake and Dusty.⁶
"You Booze, You Lose" – a local sports radio host challenges Jake to prove he cares about the season more than his partying lifestyle.⁶
"Urine God's Hands Now" – Jake and Dusty court an ultra-conservative councilman to secure funding for a new arena.⁶
"Because Vegas" – Jake's tech company goes under, and a new employee brings back bad memories for Dusty.⁶

Production

Executive producer Mike Tollin, whose credits include Smallville, One Tree Hill, Varsity Blues, and Arli$$, first conceived the idea about a decade before broadcast with Bryan Gordon, and the project was sold to another network before landing at Yahoo Screen.⁴ Gordon also directed, and Chris Case also wrote for the series.⁹

The show was shot on location at Las Vegas' Orleans Hotel and Casino in the fall of 2014.¹⁰ The cast spent six weeks living in Caesars Palace during production, an arrangement Tom Arnold described as immersive and grueling under the non-stop glare of the Strip.¹¹

Writer Chris Case said the key characters reflect the dot-com boom, with the narcissism of team owner Jake Tullus inspired by Internet moguls he had met. Tollin described the show as the ultimate workplace comedy, inspired in part by real-life events such as the 2014 scandal surrounding former Clippers owner Donald Sterling: "The comedy is raucous and bawdy, but at its core it is very grounded. These are things that are in the sports pages every day."⁴

Reception

The series received mixed-to-negative reviews from the critics who covered it. On Rotten Tomatoes, the season holds a 92% Tomatometer based on 4 reviews, with fewer than 50 audience ratings.¹² Metacritic lists two critic reviews, both negative with a score of 30: Mike Hale of The New York Times called it "a comedy less coherent than the halftime scoreboard video at an N.B.A. game," and Keith Uhlich of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that "everyone and everything onscreen is beyond tired," noting that the best gags were courtside cameos by Penn Jillette and Carrot Top.³ A review at TV Over Mind found the show stuck among characters and stories that were only superficially introduced.¹² IMDb users have rated the series 6.2 out of 10 from about 370 votes.¹³

Context in Yahoo Screen's original programming

Sin City Saints was Yahoo's first original scripted series, arriving as the company shifted from short-form video toward TV-style half-hour comedies alongside the revived sixth season of Community and Paul Feig's Other Space.⁷^•¹⁴ The strategy did not pay off. During its earnings call in October 2015, Yahoo CFO Ken Goldman said the company had written off $42 million in expenses related to Community, Sin City Saints, and Other Space, admitting that "in three cases at least, it didn't work the way that we hoped it would."⁵ Yahoo Screen was closed in 2016. The series was not renewed, and it is listed as canceled/ended after its single season.⁸

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › Comedy, drama, and general-genre web series › Premiered 1999 to 2016

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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