With few exceptions, the 30 for 30 documentary series, the brainchild of ESPN alum Bill Simmons (now overseeing The Ringer’s podcast empire in Los Angeles), has been a commercial and critical success. However, “Long Gone Summer,” a two-hour window into the 1998 home run chase waged by steroid-era sluggers Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, was neither.
The doc reportedly drew underwhelming ratings, amassing just 775,000 viewers upon its debut Sunday night. According to Sports Business Journal’s Austin Karp, that audience was on par with “Unmatched,” a 2010 installment centered on tennis stars Chris Everet and Martina Navratilova (780,000) and 2013’s surfing doc “Hawaiian: The Legend of Eddie Aikau” (771,000).
In retrospect, it’s easy to see why “Long Gone Summer” was a ratings flop. Not only did it feature a pair of disgraced stars in McGwire and Sosa (who has yet to come clean on his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs), but it also came on the heels of more gripping docs including the much-anticipated “The Last Dance,” a headline-grabbing Michael Jordan vehicle that soared to record ratings while fueling the national dialogue with countless memes and iconic quotes.
Another explanation for the light viewership could be the general public’s continued disgust over MLB’s ongoing labor war between players and owners. With all the long-form content put out recently—ESPN has chronicled the careers of Lance Armstrong, Bruce Lee and Roy Halladay in the past several weeks—perhaps fatigued viewers are growing weary of the sports doc genre.
“Long Gone Summer” even received low viewership in Chicago, where Sosa spent the majority of his 18-year playing career. According to Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune, “Long Gone Summer” drew significantly worse Nielsen ratings (1.8) than both 60 Minutes (6.5) and Celebrity Family Feud (6.3) in the Windy City. By comparison, “The Last Dance” averaged a 12.0 throughout its month-long run.
If you missed Sunday night’s debut of “Long Gone Summer,” you didn’t miss much, at least according to media columnist Jimmy Traina of Sports Illustrated, who called it one of 30 for 30 ’s weakest entries. “The show spent most of the time glorifying Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire and then, in the final 15 minutes, was like, ‘Oh, by the way, while these guys were busting out of their jerseys and hitting moon shot after moon shot, there was also this little steroid scandal,’” said Traina, who described the 105-minute documentary as “weird.” “Even the talking heads on the doc were boring and added little insight.”
Whether it was plagued by weak subject matter, poor execution or some combination of the two, “Long Gone Summer” was a rare swing and a miss for a network that has produced many of the most compelling sports docs of the last decade.
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