This truly is the golden era for sports documentaries, and NBA TV was the latest network to make a big splash in the field this week with their highly anticipated program on the Dream Team.  Featuring a number of interviews, highlights, and never before seen footage, the documentary was well publicized and hyped ahead of its Wednesday night premiere.  The audience for the documentary was huge – 847,000 viewers, the most watched show in the history of NBA TV.

The only question may be why it took the NBA so long to produce the definitive piece on the greatest team ever assembled.  The success of the Dream Team doc should encourage even more networks to push more chips towards the genre.  The beauty and simplicity of documentaries is the unlimited supply of great stories to tell – ones that we know well like the Dream Team, or ones we don’t know so well like Ayrton Senna or The Two Escobars.  As ESPN and HBO have been the flagbearers for the entire field, hopefully more networks like NBA TV are pushed to produce high-quality content.  Just imagine the possibilities of the league networks alone in the documentary field.  Perhaps most importantly though, it’s now been proven that these shows can draw in large audiences.

Whatever the future holds in the documentary field, this Dream Team effort will stand as one of the best.  Oh, and if you happened to miss it, you can watch the full program below.

 
https://youtube.com/watch?v=s34TVxVHxDg

[H/T Multichannel]