Ballers leaves a strange legacy after tackling serious issues like CTE and racial disparity

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"Ballers never felt like a serious show," says Ben Travers. "Offering a glammed-up look inside the life of ex-NFL star Spencer Strasmore (played by a besuited Dwayne Johnson), Stephen Levinson’s HBO pseudo-comedy kept the stakes pretty low, even in its final season. Big spending led to big paychecks, which led to bigger spending and bigger paychecks, until Spencer had accumulated enough wealth to be a viable option for NFL ownership. Audiences never needed to worry if ol’ Spence was gonna be okay, just if he was going to be able to afford the expensive things — his own agency, acquiring other agencies, an NFL team — he craved. And yet serious issues still popped up, like a tag-along tax on all that big money being thrown around." ALSO: Ballers ended without answering these burning questions.