American Sports Story, a new extension of Ryan Murphy’s “American Story” franchise, focuses on a prominent event involving a sports figure and re-examines it through the prism of today’s world, telling that story from multiple perspectives.

The first installment charts the rise and fall of NFL superstar Aaron Hernandez, played by Josh Andrés Rivera, and explores the connections of the disparate strands of his identity, his family, his career, his suicide and his legacy in sports and American culture. Season 1 is based on the podcast Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc. and hails from the Boston Globe and Wondery.

Blanchard will portray the mother of the disgraced football star and convicted murderer, Terri Hernandez, we hear.