The original post: /r/television by /u/CTeam19 on 2025-01-01 17:56:19.

ESPN’s 30 for 30 was created for the 30th Anniversary of the sports network and it was 30 documentaries about lesser known or remembered sports story over the last 30 years and since then they have continued the documentaries. A lot of them not only talk about sports but other societal things like drugs, AIDS, Cancer, and geopolitics. It light of a lot of recent news stories about various things like the Kids HIV/AIDS Camp closing because there isn’t enough sick kids, SMU being in the College Football Playoffs in the NIL Era, Trump’s re-election, Legalized Sports Betting, Crystal Mangum admitting she falsely accused Duke Lacrosse players of rape, Lebron James turning 40, etc many are tied to those things or related to the subject:

  • Tim Richmond: To the Limit – story of Tim Richmond a victim of HIV/AIDS
  • The Announcement – Magic Johnson announcing to the world that he tested positive for HIV.
  • Pony Excess – story of the rise and fall of the SMU football program and paying players
  • Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? – Fresh interviews and archival footage track the life and demise of the United States Football League in the mid-1980s. A highlight is Tollin’s interview with Donald Trump, the former New Jersey Generals owner whose post-interview comments on the league give this documentary its title.
  • The Legend of Jimmy the Greek – The life of Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder, from his career as a Las Vegas bookmaker to his tenure on The NFL Today, from which he was fired in 1988.
  • Playing for the Mob – Point Shaving scandal, a fear many have with legalized sports betting
  • Fantastic Lies – A 10-year retrospective of the Duke lacrosse case
  • Believeland – Story of Cleveland’s title drought and Lebron James breaking it.

A few also provide the other side of the story or a different view shown in a few movies and inspired a television show we have:

  • Of Miracles and Men – An exploration of the movie, Miracle on Ice from the point of view of the defeated Soviet Union team. The film features defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov returning to Lake Placid to recollect his team’s defeat.
  • The Price of Gold – A profile of a January 6, 1994, incident at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, where an unknown attacker strikes entrant Nancy Kerrigan — an assailant that is later revealed to be a hit man hired by the ex-husband of Kerrigan’s rival, Tonya Harding, as part of a plan to prevent Kerrigan from competing in the 1994 Winter Olympics. Of course I, Tonya was the movie about Tonya Harding
  • The Prince of Pennsylvania – An exploration of the turbulent relationship between Olympic wrestling brothers Mark and Dave Schultz and their eccentric benefactor, John du Pont, culminating in the murder of Dave by du Pont. The movie based on these people and events was Foxcatcher
  • What Carter Lost – In any other year, the 1988 team from Dallas’s Carter High School would have gone down as one of the greatest in Texas football history, featuring 28 players who received college scholarship offers, eight of whom would eventually play professional football. Fighting off racial prejudice and a grades controversy—not to mention the team that would overshadow them in book and film (Odessa Permian) and created a show, Friday Night Lights —Carter would claim the state title, only to be rocked to their core when six of their players were involved in an armed robbery that’s affected the community’s reputation to this day; the grades controversy would ultimately lead the UIL to strip the team of the title.