Friday Night Lights is not based on a true story, but it features real-life inspirations. The fictional Dillion Panthers football team's uniforms resemble those of the real-life Pflugerville Panthers of Pflugerville High School.

That town was Dillon, Texas. While the show is fictional, it felt so authentic that it has led many fans of it to wonder: Is Dillon a real place? Friday Night Lights may be best known for being a hit NBC TV series, but its genesis began long before that. The story begins in 1988 in Odessa, Texas.

Friday Night Lights may be best known for being a hit NBC TV series, but its genesis began long before that. The story begins in 1988 in Odessa, Texas. According to NPR, Author Buzz Bissinger, an acclaimed non-fiction sports writer, moved his family to Odessa in 1988 for a year to follow that city’s high school football team.

In 1988, photojournalist Robert Clark joined writer Buzz Bissinger in the West Texas town of Odessa with one mission in mind: to chronicle a season of high school football with the Permian Panthers. Bissinger's book Friday Night Lights later became a Hollywood movie and inspired the TV show of the same name.