Well we all love to bash ESPN, especially when they do any time of thing celebrating ESPN, but with 30 for 30 it looks like they have a real shot at doing something really cool and interesting. An idea created by Bill Simmons, 30 for 30 is basically 30 documentaries done by filmmakers (From Barry Levinson to Steve Nash) about sports stories over the past 30 years.

The first documentary, "Kings Ransom," which was directed by Peter Berg and is about the Oilers trading Gretzky, airs tomorrow (Tuesday) night at 8pm on ESPN and re-airs at 11pm on ESPN2.

I am really excited for a bunch of these documentaries (Gretzky, The Colts leaving Bal, The U, etc), so I will be going into the series with high hopes. We can use this thread to discuss all of the films throughout the series' run.

Here is a list of the first 7 documentaries that will air (you can check out the rest on the 30 for 30 site, there are write ups and trailers for them).

Tuesday, Oct. 6, 8 p.m. - Kings Ransom (Peter Berg)
Tuesday, Oct. 13, 8 p.m. - The Band That Wouldn't Die (Barry Levinson)
Tuesday, Oct. 20, 8 p.m. - Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? (Mike Tollin)
Tuesday, Oct. 27, 8 p.m. - Muhammad and Larry (Albert Maysles)
Tuesday, Nov. 3, 8 p.m. - Without Bias (Kirk Fraser)
Tuesday, Nov. 10, 8 p.m. - The Legend of Jimmy The Greek (Fritz Mitchell)
Saturday, Dec. 12, 9 p.m. - The U (Billy Corben)


30 for 30 Website

Full Television Schedule

Wiki (short description for each documentary)

30 for 30 Trailer

Bill Simmons' 30 for 30 Essay

looking forward to len bias and the U

I'm also really excited about this and think there's a good chance of it being a huge success.

I'll have to make sure I set my dvr to record this, otherwise I'll probably end up missing the ones I want to see, and catching the ones I don't give a **** about.

I was thinking I should make a thread about this on the way home.

yeah, this should be quite interesting...

so which ones might be worth watching? thanks to nfl network i never put on espn anymore (unless theres a game)

Pretty excited for the 1st one, about Gretzky's trade to LA.

Excited for the Iverson one as well, directed by the guy who made Hoop Dreams. Simmons has been pimping hard for awhile now.

The cool part to me is that they picked such a wide variety of topics to cover. If espn actually added some depth to their content on a regular basis, they might have something there.

Might have to resurrect the "Retrospective:" series of posts in honor of this. Haven't done one in a while.

Very excited for this, especially the more obscure and forgotten tales. The USFL, Jimmy the Greek, Nash's film, and Charismatic - all very intriguing.

Looks interesting. I expect them to be pretty good.

"The various events of June 17, 1994" is obviously referring to the OJ Simpson car chase. Was there any other 'event' happening that day? I was not interviewed for that even though I made my professional broadcasting debut in minor league baseball on that day.

I was a fan of the USFL so will enjoy that one. Go Birmingham Stallions!!

I'm really going to love the Loyola Marymount one too. I was just obsessed with that team in the late 80's. For those who aren't aware or too young to remember, they had an insane run-and-gun style. They averaged 122 points per game in 1989-90. Sometimes they would have a fast-break or wide open lane to the basket and would pull up and just shoot a 3 instead. They were ridiculous and a ton of fun.

On March 4, 1990 their star player, Hank Gathers, collapsed and died in the middle of the floor right after scoring a basket. LMU went on to the NCAA tournament and advanced to the elite 8 including an emotional 2nd round upset of Michigan 149-115.

The record for the top 5 highest scoring games in NCAA history are ALL games with LMU.

Just look at some of these ridiculous scores (only one of them in overtime). I mean, I look a little lower on the list and get to something like 131-116 and that kind of wild score ends up looking kind of tame. Woot! What a defensive struggle that one was!!

01/31/89 U.S. INTERNATIONAL W 181-150
11/28/88 AZUSA PACIFIC W 164-138
01/07/89 at U.S. International W 162-144
12/7/1989 at US International W 152-137
02/18/89 GONZAGA W 147-136
1/19/1990 GONZAGA W 144-100
2/1/1990 SAINT MARY'S W 150-119
2/3/1990 at Louisiana State L 141-148 ot
3/18/1990 vs Michigan W 149-115
2/4/1990 SAN FRANCISCO W 157-115
2/9/1990 at San Francisco W 137-123
2/10/1990 at Saint Mary's W 139-110
2/14/1990 PEPPERDINE W 131-116
02/20/88 PEPPERDINE W 142-127
02/27/88 at San Diego W 141-126

.

Whenever I see Bo Kimble shooting those left-handed free throws, it gets a little misty.

There was the NBA Finals game that was interrupted to show the chase.

Nice! I just DVR'ed the s*** out of this.

P.S. If I had to do one of these, I'd choose the Munich Olympics. I did a huge report on the massacre in college in a very tough history class. I ended up with an A or A+. So much easier to create a good product when you love what you're doing.

Interesting. I was pretty focused on my first ever professional baseball broadcast so I guess I wasn't as aware of everything else going on until a couple fans with headsets on came up to our booth after the game to mention that OJ was riding around with a gun to his head and I was like, "what?!?!"

I do remember that the final score was Erie Sailors 6 - Zanesville Greys 4. Erie's manager observed that Zanesville failed to list any subs on their lineup card...but he waited until after the starting pitcher had left and had iced his shoulder for 10+ minutes while his team was batting. They were forced to have their second baseman try to pitch so Erie overcame the 4-2 deficit. Waiting until after the starter had iced his shoulder like that was probably one of the better angle-shoots I had ever seen.


jordan -I had my own game and broadcast to worry about that night of course. I do think I vaguely remember that it interrupted a game now that you mention it. I do remember watching it in the team's office with the staff on some little TV we had in there.

Not to be a pain, but more than 30 years ago.

I didn't pay attention to what the 30's stood for...I knew it was 30 docs...didn't give the other '30' a second thought

damn...what would I choose then?

Tiger vs. Rocco in 2008 U.S. Open comes to mind
Roger vs. Rafa in 2008 Wimbledon

or somehow cover March Madness as a whole

Yeah, that's the clincher for the story and what they will hit the hardest. But it was just an amazing and incredible team before everyone was paying even more attention to them after their star player died in the middle of a game. I was a big fan of them long before their emotional NCAA tourney run. Their games were just so ridiculous with these guys running a 2 on 0 break or something and pulling up for a 3.

I still think there should be more teams trying to incorporate such an insane style that could be better off. One advantage is that it can be an attractive attribute for recruiting purposes.

Westhead was hilarious with the Denver Nuggets. Allowing 130ppg including one time when PHX scored 107 points in the 1st half against them.

You know who hasn't gotten enough media attention and would be good for one of these?

Brett Favre.

I think Watson 2009 is a more amazing story.

McEnroe popularity or McEnroe vs. Borg stuff.

Fernando-Mania in 1981 and/or Nomo-Mania in 1995.

A lot of ones I can think of have already kind of been done including 1986 and 2003 baseball post-seasons and a lot of various Olympic stuff including Miracle On Ice.

Speaking of which...anyone who is interested in any of this stuff and is going crazy DVR'ing it should really be checking out as many of Bud Greenspan's Olympic documentaries as they can. It think they mostly show them on Showtime now but they've been on other channels before. Bud Greenspan's various documentaries are some of the very best out there and can have you fascinated by ]almost any story or athlete even if you've never heard of them before.

simmons is also interviewing all the directors via 30 for 30 podcast. should be good accompanying material for the documentaries.