I must confess that I have a real problem with the many of the currently produced sports "documentary" series. It's not that they aren't brilliantly made, carefully crafted and deliver a compelling narrative with sumptuous production values. It's that they're officially sanctioned. And if you start from that point, then I think they have a major problem journalistically.
Netflix and Amazon are commissioning these things a lot. They're relatively inexpensive, have loyal fanbases to market to, and the sports organisations know that they may (or may not) hook in new fans. In any event, they have to be kept "on-side" to gain rights to the footage needed to weave everything together. Amazon has it's "All or Nothing" strand, and I found it quickly unwatchable. It's so sanitised of any kind of misdeeds or imperfections. These weren't news crews embedded with the teams, they were making entertainment, and no matter who has "final cut" - the team or the producers - it's in both parties interests to present some stories ahead of others. The most recent British version of All or Nothing covered Tottenham Hotspur (arch rivals of my team, Arsenal - the lest said about last weekend, the better). The first episode managed to cover the sacking of their previous manager, which is usually a big thing in a football club, in an almost offhand manner. Of course, most managers or coaches tend to have an inkling that their job is under threat, so they might not be predisposed towards giving full access to a documentary crew while they're struggling. Even the excellent The Last Dance had this access thing hanging over it. While I found the series compelling despite - and I can't emphasise this enough, *having ZERO interest in basketball - *having over it was the fact that it Jordan had control over the footage including all the behind scenes video from the season in question. While the perception was of a "warts and all" view of the man, the fact that only right at the end that we really learnt anything about his family suggested strongly to me that certain aspects of his life were off limits. That Jordan's decision to make of course, but it can call into question the journalistic validity of the whole enterprise. Now all that said, I have heard good things about Netflix's Sunderland 'Til I Die which covers an English football team just down from the Premier League. It's about the community as well as the club. But I still can't bring myself to watch it. One of the real problems we have with sport is no proper way to have critical journalistic endeavour in TV. While ESPN's 30 for 30 series are undoubtedly excellent, they look back at sporting history. No sports channel, who either own, or aspire to own the rights to, say, the FIFA World Cup, is going to do a major documentary on corruption in FIFA. At least, not until that genie is well and truly out of the bottle. With NFL rights being so valuable and crucial for many US networks, would any of them really take on the NFL? Sure, awareness of concussion is a thing and gets covered now, but all is not perfect in the game, and there are other critical stories to tell. In the UK, Sky and BT Sport are beholden to the Premier League, so we don't get truly investigative work from them into the machinations of what is now a business. Why sour a relationship that is essential to your TV station's future? Adam On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 5:39 AM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote: > I am a sports fan, but have never been into motor sports. I’ve never been > a “car guy”. I usually watch the Indy 500, occasionally the Daytona 500, > have had zero interest in F1. That changed a little last year when I saw > Ford v Ferrari, which I thought one of the five best films of the year. > > Then I stumbled upon the two seasons of this F1 Doc on Netflix last week, > and just inhaled it. It’s coproduced with F1, and is not perfect, as in > spots it’s purpose as an extended commercial for a multi billion dollar > corporation shines through. But that is tolerable, because it really makes > the sport accessible, in my experience for the first time. > > I don’t know enough about documentary film making to articulate why this > show is so effective. There isn’t really a narrator, though they use bits > of interviews with a racing journalist to provide context and connection. > The racing footage is exciting, and it nicely cuts out all the long boring > parts. > > The show does not really want to make me watch F1 ( I am trying to avoid > spoilers on what happened in the 2020 season, if there was a season). What > it does is make me want to see Season 3 of this show. > -- > Sent from Gmail Mobile > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkY%2BTmM8uYtuaYHirG_GuooG_OqQSdDterY%2BcmAL1TvCuvQ%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkY%2BTmM8uYtuaYHirG_GuooG_OqQSdDterY%2BcmAL1TvCuvQ%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAD_sJGAENMcyW%3DqjYq4JbErZgVT6Fyyg4QMV5bAUA%2B1CRKOxLw%40mail.gmail.com.
