As the COVID-19 pandemic was canceling the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, suspending the NBA and NHL seasons and derailing the start of baseball, the sports world desperately needed positive news.
Jason Hehir, the director of ESPN’s “The Last Dance” documentary focusing on Michael Jordan in his final season with the Chicago Bulls, did what he could to help. “The Last Dance” is a 10-part series that had been scheduled to start in June, but the first two hour-long episodes instead are airing Sunday night on both ESPN and ESPN2, beginning at 9.
“I was in a bar with my producer and one of my best friends when we learned about (Utah Jazz center) Rudy Gobert testing positive and the NBA suspending play, and we all just looked at each other without saying anything,” Hehir said. “Then we all just burst out laughing – not, of course, at the conditions, but because we thought they were going to make us do this earlier. We didn’t view it as an, ‘Oh, no,’ moment. We saw it as an opportunity to fill a void.
“Every documentary I’ve done has been about sports, and I’m a huge believer that sports is a microcosm for society and our lives. You can go to a baseball game and sit next to a stranger in the first inning, but by the ninth inning, you’re high-fiving him like he’s a lifelong friend. Sports bonds people in that way.”
Hehir already has directed two of the most well-received documentaries in the ESPN Films “30 for 30” series with “The Fab Five” in 2011 and “The ’85 Bears” in 2016.