ESPN Player adds more documentary content
ESPN Player to premiere content from the ESPN Films library and Backwater docuseries.
Streaming service ESPN Player will premiere two new features from it’s Backstory docuseries and ESPN Films library.
Leading the content from Monday 29th June is the latest installment from the Backstory docuseries which goes behind sports’ biggest headlines to find the story behind the story. Hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winner Don Van Natta, Jr, Backstory: The Decision examines the legacy of Lebron James ESPN special ‘The Decision’ a decade on from the infamous broadcast and the effect it has had on NBA free agents, a new era of player empowerment.
NBA Commissioner David Stern was among those who wasn’t pleased with the way it was handled. Backstory: The Decision goes behind the scenes to explore the developments that led to “The Decision,” and explores the broadcast’s far-reaching consequences by examining the legacy of its findings for NBA free agents, including LeBron, in a new era of player empowerment.
Also new to ESPN Player is ESPN Films Blackfeet Boxing, on July 1st, a unique and compelling feature examining a battle of survival for Native American women as the Blackfeet boxing gym on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana offers the opportunity for women to protect themselves and preserve their hopes.
Frank Kipp, who was born and raised on the Blackfeet Reservation, and worked as a probation officer there, witnessed the damage to its women and girls firsthand. It scarred him, and his people. He decided to fight back, in the way he most understood. In 2003, Kipp—a former welterweight who won 38 bouts as an amateur—opened the Blackfeet Boxing Club.
The gym has trained more than 500 boxers on the reservation, but for Frank, over time, its most important fighters were the young women and girls, including his daughter Donna, who came in search of more than a heavy bag. They sought a way to protect themselves and preserve their hopes.
Blackfeet Boxing tells the story of one girl who never made it to the gym, Ashley Loring Heavyrunner. Her family still searches for her across the vast sweep of the reservation where she disappeared in June 2017, as her sister Kimberly fights for recognition and justice in the face of collective indifference from tribal and federal law enforcement and state and national government.
