Knowing Sports: The Logic of the Contemporary Sports Documentary

This article analyzes the mutually supportive confluence of sports and documentary by explaining how this dynamic informs assertions contemporary documentary makes about sport. Focusing on ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, it identifies five such claims: that it is imbricated with capital, that it is visually spectacular, that it celebrates individual expression, that it is always already narrativized, and that thinking about sport always entails thinking about and through media. The article concludes by developing in detail the final claim—that sports in the contemporary age, articulated through documentary film and video, always entails thinking about media itself—noting how this creates a logic whereby trying to “know sports” without the guidance of ESPN becomes an impossibility.