With most live sports suspended indefinitely due to Covid-19, fans are clamoring for ESPN to release their 10-episode documentary featuring Michael Jordan and the 1998 Chicago Bulls, titled The Last Dance.
Scheduled to premiere in June around the NBA Finals, sports fans are hoping ESPN will debut it sooner, but network EVP Burke Magnus explained there are challenges to making that happen. The first being, the documentary hasn’t been completed yet.
“I know some have asked about ‘The Last Dance,’ and the reality is that the production of that film has not yet been completed, so we are limited there at the moment,” Magnus told Brian Steinberg of Variety. “Obviously, you can’t air it until it’s done.” Still, Magnus said they will consider moving up the premiere of any completed project.
Another way to fill their lineup without live sports and without many studio shows because of the spreading coronavirus pandemic, is replaying old games. But even with ESPN’s vault of classic contests to choose from, it’s still not as easy as selecting a game and hitting play the way consumers do with at-home on-demand content.
“Re-airing full-game presentations is not a right that we or other media companies typically have at our disposal at all times,” Magnus said in his interview with Variety. “Each one of these circumstances requires individual conversations with the specific league or property to determine what’s possible.” ESPN is “working with the leagues themselves to free up the possibility to show encore presentations and discussing how we can present them.”
All networks are working on ways to create content, prioritizing the health and safety of their employees, while not having live sports to rely on. The unknown of when sports will return presents an issue. League’s could have a return date set in one month, but it could very possibly be three, six or more. Networks have to prepare to create content for all of it.
“There are so many creative things we can do, similar to some of the initiatives we’ve done in the past for special event anniversaries, ‘The Ocho’ day and more,” said Magnus. “The challenge is that now we need to replicate that dynamic 24 hours a day, seven days a week across multiple networks. That’s what is in front of us in terms of long-range planning.”
