Sideline to Byline: Sports media’s money is with the cinematic
How do we remember athletes? The past half century provides endless films of their grace, their hustle and their words, but a legacy isn’t encapsulated in their TV record. I’ll give you one example to start: how we, or at least I, remember Kobe Bryant.
I watch the goosebump-inducing short film Dear Basketball, narrated off a poem Bryant wrote in The Players’ Tribune before his last season. With its beautiful animation overlaid by Bryant’s soft goodbye to the sport he loved, the film won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 2018.
It’s the realest documentation we have of the late, great athlete, more than all the highlight reels and game tapes combined. Sound like a radical statement? Watch the film again. No viewer can turn off the screen without feeling the journey of a dream-ridden kid to a worn-down legend. That’s why it won the Oscar, and is exactly what sports media should continue to move towards.
When the pandemic stripped the world of day-to-day sports action, sports media distributors immediately turned to the backlog of documentaries they have and gave sports fanatics at least something they could snack on. March started out rough for this audience, but then came “The Last Dance.”
Labeled the saving grace of the sports quarantine period, the 10-part Michael Jordan series drew in record-breaking viewership that expanded beyond the typical sports fanatic. My family became one of the five million households that put its two-episode premieres on our sacred Sunday docket. We watched what felt like in real time the GOAT struggle to rally his team to win a sixth championship, and my parents got to relive the glory of 90’s basketball.
I’ll save the synopsis for your own Wikipedia search, but the most astounding thing about this docuseries’ storyline reflects Bryant’s five-minute masterpiece: it’s just about basketball.
To be more specific, it’s about the story of basketball, yet the point of the media’s ability to reach mass audiences remains the same. No broader political or social issue was addressed to rope in interest — it was the simple triumph and tragedy of the game itself that managed to make the series a cultural phenomena.
Welcome to the age of the cinematic sports documentary. Sorry 30 for 30, I’m not talking about you, but good run nonetheless. These types of film go beyond the reverent highlight reels and make sports a human-centered story anyone can follow. They are not made for the walking sports encyclopedias, but they do not miss out on the significance of certain moments throughout certain games.
“The Last Dance” wasn’t an intense study of basketball’s greatest team. It was the story of the characters who somehow had to come together to earn that title with Jordan at the center. Through the ingenious interview technique where Jordan himself viewed other interview subjects’ footage, we got real reactions that showed a glimpse of the grudges he held. We took it as personally as Jordan did, and that’s the beauty of this type of dive into the reality of sports.
I wouldn’t say it’s “muck-racking” investigative work. Rather, it’s an instructive piece of sports media with a storyline meant for broader audiences.
In an age where live sports coverage has invaded every centimeter of live game coverage from the locker room to the mic’d up sidelines, sports documentaries and cinematic pieces still provide a realer sense of athletes themselves. Filmmakers can take time with their subjects and with the vast archive of such documentation of athletes and reinvent the narrative beyond the day-to-day headlines.
The result is something more real than what a game recap can offer. The audience’s takeaway feels more real than any locker room photo or sideline banter could offer. Our sports legends become demystified and accessible.
Streaming giants are taking note and are funding more and more cinematic sports content. Brazil’s football giant Pelé has his own Netflix documentary exploring the complexity of his non political stance during the 1960s. Other documentaries such as “Athlete A” and “Icarus” explore how the politics of Olympic-level athletes ultimately endanger their health and are also available on the streaming giant. Even “Tiger,” which I wrote about in my last column, exemplifies the caliber of sports storytelling that defines an athlete’s legacy.
If sports media is going to survive in the age of streaming, it must challenge itself to dig for the stories behind the scoreboards. Cinematic appeal takes time, but it’s necessary to attract new audiences.
Taylor Mills is a sophomore writing about sports media. She is also a Sports Editor at the Daily Trojan. Her column, “Sideline to Byline,” runs every other Monday.