I have a TV Soap Boomerang award, and I always start my year with the Australian Open tennis! Tennis, soccer, you name it.
There's not a moment on it that will sound too familiar, as soon as it sounds comfortably familiar then we like to do something with it to take away that comfortable feeling.
The great thing about using the past is that it gives you the most colossal freedom to invent. The research is necessary, of course, but no one writes a novel to dramatically illustrate what everybody already knows.