Hacker Cinema
30 for 30
2009 · TV series · documentary · 4 seasons
Created by Bill Simmons, Connor Schell, John Dahl
30 for 30 is the title for a series of documentary films airing on ESPN, its sister networks, and online highlighting interesting people and events in sports history. This currently includes four "volumes" of 30 episodes each, a 13-episode series under the ESPN Films Presents title in 2011–2012, and a series of 30 for 30 Shorts shown through the ESPN.com website. The series has also expanded to include Soccer Stories, which aired in advance of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and audio podcasts. This entry refers to the main Volumes of the series presented by ESPN
8 positive2 neutralfrom 10 commenters
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11 comments on Hacker News
espn's more long-form storytelling is top notch. check out their 30 for 30 documentary series, they're fantastic.
BAMTECH Media | New York, NY | Senior Full Stack Engineer, Media Engineering | Full Time | ONSITE or REMOTE (US ONLY)
BAMTECH Media is looking for a Senior Full Stack Engineer to join the Media Engineering Department. This position has a growth opportunity to leadership of the team if that is something that interests you.
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You would be joining a team within Media Engineering that builds best in class products that empower our and our partner’s operations teams to: create a highlight for Aaron Judges’ towering homerun in the AtBat app, monitor and quality control the ingestion of excellent content like new 30 for 30 episodes for ESPN+ or control the live production of our hundreds of live event video streams a day. We are looking for someone who is bold, data driven, and tenacious in delivering high quality software products. Our operation teams are experts at what they do and need the best tools to deliver a compelling consumer experience day to day.
Technologies include Angular, Javascript, Java, Spring, and AWS infrastructure to name a few. Experience in these is preferred but not required. If you're open to learning new things, or excited to expand your skill set in these areas, then our team is for you. Please apply here: https://jobs.disneycareers.com/job/new-york/full-stack-engineer-media-engineering/391/6746809 or reach out to me personally at jesse.friedland@bamtechmedia.com
BAMTECH Media | New York, NY | Senior Full Stack Engineer, Media Engineering | Full Time | ONSITE or REMOTE
BAMTECH Media is looking for a Senior Full Stack Engineer to join the Media Engineering Team. If you enjoy streaming media, are interested in live sports and entertainment, or just want to join a fast-growing team that plays an integral part of the revenue producing arm of a company, then our team is for you. BAMTECH is a best-in-class media streaming technology company powering several properties today including MLB, ESPN+, PlayStation Vue, NHL, Fox Sports Go, WWE, Eurosport, and many others.
You would be joining a team within Media Engineering that builds best in class products that empower our and our partner’s operations teams to: create a highlight for Aaron Judges’ towering homerun in the AtBat app, monitor and quality control the ingestion of excellent content like new 30 for 30 episodes for ESPN+ or control the live production of our hundreds of live event video streams a day. We are looking for someone who is bold, data driven, and tenacious in delivering high quality software products. Our operation teams are experts at what they do and need the best tools to deliver a compelling consumer experience day to day.
Technologies include Angular, Javascript, Java, Spring, and AWS infrastructure to name a few. Experience in these is preferred but not required. If you're open to learning new things, or excited to expand your skill set in these areas, then our team is for you. Please apply here: https://jobs.disneycareers.com/job/new-york/full-stack-engineer-media-engineering/391/6746809 or reach out to me (Jesse Friedland) directly
30 for 30 did an episode on this. It was so interesting and while true many get scammed out of their money, a lot more are spending it check to check.
Quotes from the show "I had more mortgages than HUD" "I had 30 to 40 cell phone contracts" "No athlete wants to earn a few percentage points in bonds. They wanna go for the big dollars, Open restaurants, clubs and car washes! They conquered sports now they will own their next endeavor"
Worst stat from the show: 60% of athletes are broke within 5 years and 70% are divorced within 3 years.
Shocking stat: There is (was?) a website that tracks athletes as they go from town to town so women can go hook up with them.
Many of these quotes are from the big money makers in various sports (NBA, NFL, MLB). They also interview the ones that were able to maintain their money. Like Jamal Mashburn who told his mom that he was going to set her up with a new house and car and before he could finish she told him to save it and take care of himself first.
I think the criticisms of ESPN and the advent of cord-cutting is severely missing a larger issue at hand. Sports are just another form of entertainment for people. I can probably safely say that the decline of ESPN first started with the rise of well-produced TV shows on HBO, AMC, Netflix, etc. I believe it's more than just correlation.
Just like a captivating TV series, sports demands your attention to the details and personal stories for you to become a fan. However, sporting events take hours to ingest at a time and the outcome leave many disappointed. People who have money to spend are typically people with fewer hours to allocate for entertainment. With the rise of quality TV shows that take one hour to consume, how do sports like baseball stand a chance at gaining new viewers?
The best thing ESPN has going for it are its 30 for 30 documentaries. A well produced documentary series. However, documentaries generally don't bring in huge sums of cash. If they can pivot to a create must-see dramatic show with a sports theme, they may have a chance.
There's only two good things that ESPN broadcasts:
* Live Sports * "30 for 30" documentaries
Aside from these it's mostly noise - sports commentary and sports news. Which, not incidentally, are the cheapest forms of programming on the channel. Quality programming will almost always find an audience in the Internet era. ESPN has a lot of low-quality filler that viewers simply don't want to pay for.
Certainly they have to have some decent content if people are willing to pay for it. I can find a fair share of entertainment and documentaries on there, especially the ESPN 30 for 30 films
> I was hoping they'd eventually figure out a way to do more Grantland-produced television, where someone with some journalistic and creative taste, as well as more creative freedom could develop, but that obviously did not happen. Maybe Bill Simmons will be able to do that with HBO and finally create a legit competitor to ESPN's non-live sports programming.
Their 30 for 30 films are awesome (thanks to Bill Simmons though, we'll see if it continues).
> and some niche content like the 30 for 30 documentaries.
You don't even need ESPN for these, they show up on Netflix pretty quickly after they've aired on ESPN.
The worse thing is that there is almost no reason to watch ESPN any longer. Sportscenter is for the most part terrible these days, with very low signal-to-noise ratio. Most of the other ESPN programming isn't worth watching, outside of the actual sporting events that they have broadcast rights to, and some niche content like the 30 for 30 documentaries.
Of course this is also the doldrum period of the sports year, with football long over, and basketball and hockey in their offseasons also. Baseball just doesn't do it, and ESPN has to fill up the air-time covering tennis and golf in excruciating detail.
I'm not a sports fan by any means but I've been enjoying many of the ESPN sports documentaries.
My favourites:
Muhammad and Larry
The Two Escobars
Into the Wind
Once Brothers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_for_30