ESPN Moves Premiere of 3 Sports Documentaries Up Amid 'The Last Dance' Success

The Last Dance won't be the last documentary series aired by ESPN in the coming months. 

ESPN announced on Tuesday that the premiere dates have been moved up for three 30 for 30 series documentaries chronicling controversial cyclist Lance Armstrong, late legendary martial artist Bruce Lee and Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.

The first of the bunch will be Armstrong. Lance will air on May 24 and May 31 before the network transitions to Lee's Be Water documentary on June 7. The final premiere will be Long Gone Summer on June 14.

Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports reported the following about the McGwire-Sosa feature: "[It's] about McGwire and Sosa's quest to topple Roger Maris's single-season home run record in the summer of 1998. ESPN says it will include interviews with both McGwire, who has admitted his use of performance-enhancing drugs, and Sosa, who has never come clean."

Long Gone Summer filmmaker AJ Schnack commented on the news:

ESPN Executive Producer and Vice President of ESPN Films and Original Content Libby Geist provided a statement on the move:

"It's a great feeling to bring three more epic documentary projects to sports fans who so need it right now. Moving up these films is no easy task, but it's absolutely worth the effort to get them on the air for audiences to experience together. It's a mix of fascinating topics, compelling characters and some of the absolute best storytelling our team has cranked out. The whole ESPN Films team is working hard to entertain fans while we wait for live sports to return and give them a distraction while we go through these hard times."

Each documentary will air at 9 p.m. ET on its premiere date.

The Last Dance has become ESPN's most-watched documentary with an average of 5.8 million viewers across the first six episodes, per McCarthy. The 10-part docuseries provides an intimate, nostalgic look at Michael Jordan and the 1990s Chicago Bulls dynasty leading up to their sixth and final championship in 1997-98.