The final episodes of "The Last Dance" aired Sunday night, yet ESPN has one more program to show about the Chicago Bulls' sixth NBA championship.
ESPN will show "Game 6: The Movie" at 9 p.m. Wednesday after a rebroadcast of episodes nine and 10 of "The Last Dance." The episode will feature game footage captured by five NBA Entertainment cameras and will be the first time the game has been available to watch in high definition.
The Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz 87-86 in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals as Michael Jordan hit the winning basket with 5.2 seconds remaining to cap the team's sixth championship in eight seasons.
Executive producer Gregg Winik - who was a camera operator for NBA Entertainment when the Bulls won the title in Jordan's final game with the franchise - said the brainstorming about Game 6 started by compiling the last 40 seconds of the matchup for the final episode of the 10-part series. After they were able to do that, it started to expand into a project of its own. Winik and his team then took the NBC telecast and started to lay in footage to get the complete product.
"If you would have (asked) me six months ago if we could have done this, I would have said it was impossible," Winik said. "It features a lot of dramatic imagery, and the pictures jump off the screen."
High definition was still in its infancy in 1998. In fact, the first major sports event to be broadcast using that technology didn't happen until Super Bowl XXXIV in January 2000, the St. Louis Rams' 23-16 victory against the Tennessee Titans that came down to the final play.
Connor Schell, ESPN's executive vice president for content, said there were conversations about showing the original NBC broadcast - until discussions revolved around an enhanced presentation.
"It was timed out beautifully how quick we were able to get it on the air," Schell said. "To top off this project with this never-seen-before version of Game 6 is an incredible ending."
The film will feature the original NBC commentary by Doug Collins, Bob Costas, Jim Gray, Ahmad Rashad and Isiah Thomas.
According to Nielsen and ESPN, the first six episodes of "The Last Dance" averaged 12.2 million viewers. That includes all airings, as well as video on demand and digital video recordings.
The final two episodes on Sunday averaged 5.6 million viewers.