Over the past few weeks, ESPN has been airing a series of one hour documentaries to commemorate their 30th anniversary, but because of the baseball playoffs, they have gone largely unnoticed. For those of you who read the Sports Guy, you're already familiar with the concept behind the project. It's pretty simple: ESPN brought in 30 directors to tell a story about each of the years in which ESPN has existed. The stories tend to be based on events that for whatever reason, haven't resonated as much today as they did at the time (with the possible exception of the Len Bias doc, although it was news to me that Bias' death was the impetus behind the current crack/cocaine sentencing distinction fraud). The concept is great and the stories so far have been compelling. So far, there have been movies about the Wayne Gretzky trade, the Baltimore Colts marching band, the USFL's demise (and Donald Trump's general douchiness), the Ali-Holmes fight, and Len Bias' death.
That's not to say the project doesn't have its shortcomings. For one, some of the stories feel like they should be full length docs, others feel like they should be 20 minute short films. Regardless, all are shoehorned into an hour time slot. My biggest beef though is with the commercials. I just find it hard to believe that ESPN doesn't have the paper to eat the hour slot, or the clout to find a sponsor to sponsor it commercial free. Shortcomings aside, the series is definitely worth DVR'ing. The clip below (after you guessed it, more fucking commercials) is an excerpt from the Ali doc about his fight with Larry Holmes, which has been both the best doc so far and the saddest - you can almost see the transition from the old Ali to the one with Parkinsons. The series airs every Tuesday at 9:00 and ESPN is planning on a marathon to re-air all of the old ones before the new set starts back up in December. Get familiar.
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