ESPN+ to Kick Off New Service with ‘The Last Days of Knight’ Documentary

| Posted on |

On Wednesday, it was announced that the 30 for 30 documentary The Last Days of Night would be the big bombshell for the debut of the ESPN+ streaming service tonight.

I can appreciate that they’re using a brand new documentary to help create a buzz about the product, but how much can be said about Bobby Knight that hasn’t already been said?

He’s a legendary coach and a not-so-great guy with a well-documented history.

It seems we’ve seen a lot of that in recent years, but he’s been the archetype of that stereotype for so long that it feels overplayed.

This doesn’t feel like the big splashy start ESPN+ wanted.

Speaking of which, what do we know about ESPN+ so far?

Well, we know it is now live.

We know that there will be sports, but it won’t be the big games that will be televised across their major channels. They want it to be distinctly different, using niche sports and games to draw in the die-hard fans and fans of specific collegiate teams.

According to ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro (who took over for John Skipper after the whole cocaine debacle), the new service is the minor league to ESPN.

“We’ve been very clear that the service is meant to be complementary and additive to what you’re getting on linear television.” -Jimmy Pitaro via TechCrunch.com

So, for $4.99, you get to watch things like Ivy League football and boxing matches featuring people you don’t know.

There’s probably a little hyperbole there, but it’s being billed as a complement to their TV channels after all, not an alternative for cord-cutters.

But they will have their list of 30 for 30 documentaries, many of which are fantastic.

The only issue is the limited amount of them and just how damn niche some of them are.

Including shorts and the soccer stories, there are currently 156 of them.

There are TV series on Netflix with more episodes.

If you decide to watch them all over the course of a couple of months, you’d be paying $5 the next month for whatever small offerings are given

Their new business model isn’t a bad one; it just isn’t what it could be.

If they included everything in an all-encompassing format, they could sell ESPN+ for $10 easily, and it would be a must-own streaming service.

As of now, it still looks very meh.

To me, the importance of ESPN+ has nothing to do with sports or ESPN, really.

Looking at a larger picture, it places Disney’s (ESPN’s parent company) gargantuan foot into the streaming doorway.

When they pull all of their animated, Marvel, and Star Wars films off of Netflix and Hulu in November, it’s only a matter of time until they unveil their own new streaming service, which will immediately become a must-own product for families across the globe.