Inside Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Vision for Netflix’s Polo: ‘They Were Extremely Hands-On’ (Exclusive)…..Read More

Showrunner Miloš Balać tells PEOPLE that the Duchess of Sussex’s love for “tailgating at a polo match” sparked a lightbulb moment, shaping the inspiration behind the series

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were totally focused on bringing the world of polo to Netflix with their new documentary series, Polo, the show’s executive producer and showrunner Miloš Balać says.

Polo premieres on Netflix on Dec. 10, taking viewers into what’s nicknamed “the sport of kings” across five episodes. The series follows elite global players as they saddle up in Wellington, Florida, for the U.S. Open Polo Championship, pulling back the curtain on the glamorous equestrian sport and the grit necessary for success.

Avid polo player Prince Harry, 40, and Meghan, 43, served as executive producers on the project from their Archewell Productions company and Boardwalk Pictures. Balać (who also served as co-executive producer for Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s Emmy Award-winning docuseries Welcome to Wrexham on FX) tells PEOPLE that the couple had a true “vision” for bringing it all together.

They were wonderful. They were extremely hands-on,” the showrunner exclusively tells PEOPLE. “They really had a vision for trying to get polo to be accessible to a wider audience. Prince Harry knows the sport inside and out. To be able to have him as someone to bounce ideas off of and then also to get notes from… ‘Maybe if you edit it like this, the polo will just feel even more exciting. Or you got to make sure that the point is played out like this because that’s how you keep it factually accurate,’ ” Balać says.

To have a polo expert in-house with him was so special. I think a lot of projects have EPs that can give great notes, but it’s rare that you have someone who’s truly an expert in the subject that you are documenting.”

The Duke of Sussex has played polo for years and saddles up annually for the Sentebale Polo Cup, his charity’s flagship fundraiser. Balać tells PEOPLE that Prince Harry hoped (as the larger team did) to bring in Adolfo and Poroto Cambiaso, a father and son set of polo stars. Adolfo is esteemed as one of the best polo players of all time, while his 17-year-old son is an emerging talent.

“I think his hope from very early on, which was all of our hopes, is that the Cambiaso’s would be interested and willing to participate because of how much they mean in this world and to the sport and how much they’ve contributed as a whole,” Balać says. “On top of that, just having the incredible story that they have as a father-son duo that have played side by side for so long and [spoiler alert!] were finally playing against each other. So it was definitely early on it was like, ‘Let’s try and get the Cambiasos,’ was something he put on my to-do list and we were able to do it, so that was a great payoff.”

The Duchess of Sussex, meanwhile, has been a supportive spouse and her husband’s’s number one supporter at his polo matches through the years. Balać says that Meghan wanted Polo to capture the welcoming energy of the sideline scene — a little-known aspect of the game.

“I think I spoke to them before I ever went to a polo match and it was [Meghan] who really prepped me for how wonderfully casual polo can be,” Balać tells PEOPLE about the Duchess of Sussex’s specific idea for the series.

“Sunday polo on Field One at the U.S. Polo Center is a big to-do where people have champagne brunches and come with their beautiful outfits. But the rest of the week, every polo match is actually so down to earth. It’s a lot of people pulling up in their pickup trucks and their cowboy boots, if not barefoot, with their dogs and their families and their kids to watch the game that they love,” Balać tells PEOPLE. “They’re there not to see and be seen, but to enjoy the sport that they really care about and people show up to that for free and you just pull up and she said that that’s what she loves.

She also loves tailgating at a polo match, and that just sort of set a lightbulb in my head where I was like, ‘Oh, this world is really not going to be what I think it is, in a good way,” the showrunner continues. “And we were able to then dig deeper into all the ways that it isn’t what people assume it is.”

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s longtime friend, Ignacio “Nacho” Figueras, appears in Polo as an expert and was also involved behind the camera as a consulting producer. Balać tells PEOPLE that the strong bond between Prince Harry and Nacho was evident.

“They really are great friends. That much is beyond obvious. When Prince Harry happened to be along for the Sentebale charity match, which we featured, just seeing them together at the polo field was infectious,” he says. “It’s like two buddies who really love each other and love the sport together having a great time and raising money for a good cause was just such a good vibe day. And Nacho really is just a wonderful, lovely human. So anytime he’s around is a good time.”

Figueras, 47, has long supported Prince Harry’s charity Sentebale as an ambassador, and the friends are known to travel the world together to compete in the Sentebale Polo Cup, which fundraises for the charity Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho established in 2006 as a support for young people in southern Africa. Balać called Figueras his “ambassador” to learning more about the world of polo (a sport synonymous with the royal family for generations) and says bringing the game to Netflix screens with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex was an unforgettable experience.

Working with them was definitely special. I think they were amazing collaborators that brought so much energy and passion to the project as a whole. Polo is one of Prince Harry’s greatest passions. It seems that Meghan has adopted it as one of hers too, just in terms of being his partner,” Balać tells PEOPLE. “She also loves the sport, and it was really fun to talk to her about what she loves about [it]. And Harry comes at it from the athlete perspective, so it was great to have both of those perspectives to help inform how I would go about sharing this world.”

On the eve of the premiere of Polo, the showrunner says, “We’re just so excited that this series is coming into the world now. We really hope that people fall in love with this cast of characters. At the end of the day, I want people to know that this isn’t a typical sports documentary. It’s about human stories and finding ways to connect with people who you might not otherwise and along the way fall in love with a sport that you know nothing about. So I just hope people give it a watch and love what they see.”