With the NBA on indefinite hiatus, one fairly universal request from basketball fans has been for ESPN to push up the release date of its highly-anticipated documentary series The Last Dance, a 10-part look inside the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls. It was originally slated to drop sometime in June of 2020, but a report on Monday night indicated that ESPN listened to fans and decided to move it up.
The Worldwide Leader confirmed this on Tuesday morning when it dropped a new trailer for the series which announced the updated release date, April 19. Set to “Sirius” by The Alan Parsons Project — the song that became a staple during introductions of the Bulls’ starting lineup at the United Center — the trailer features a number of clips from the documentary, which includes interviews with folks like Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson.
On April 19 … IT BEGINS 🍿#TheLastDance | @StateFarm pic.twitter.com/BTxWjWyqdY
— ESPN (@espn) March 31, 2020
Beyond the new trailer, ESPN also announced the schedule for the project. Beginning on April 19, a pair of new chapters in this story will be broadcast — one hour-long episode will air at 9 p.m. EST, with another airing immediately following that episode’s conclusion. Starting April 26, the previous week’s editions of the documentary will air at 7 and 8 p.m. EST. Additionally, all of these will eventually make their way onto Netflix.
The ESPN press release lists when each episode of "The Last Dance" will air (including the Netflix dates for those outside of the U.S.): pic.twitter.com/5UMNQN75Z3
— Alex Kennedy (@AlexKennedyNBA) March 31, 2020
For one, thank goodness this got moved up, because if we’re not going to have basketball for a few months (which doesn’t exactly sound like a stretch due to the COVID-19 pandemic), this might be the best way to somewhat satiate the desire for the game. It is hard to find a hoops fan who isn’t extremely excited for this, and fortunately, it’s now going to come much sooner than anticipated.
