Can You Really Tell The Story Of The Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Just 10 Hours? | Defector

"The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have commissioned a 10-part docuseries on themselves and Amazon Prime has agreed to air it, starting on December 11. Even by the debased standards that apply to vanity sports documentaries, the question of "why" springs immediately to mind, and then it just keeps springing there, with a manic gleam in its eye and a knife between its teeth."

"Every misbegotten feature film is made for the same reason, which is to see if there's some money to be made off of it, but a documentary film would ordinarily serve to document some notable or useful thing. But sports documentaries are by and large a vanity buy, now, and a sprawling history of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as a subject lands somewhere near "the comprehensive history of Andorra" as these things go-a very niche buy indeed."

"But let's be honest: does this suck any more than any other 10-part sports autobiography? Is there a team or person out there who could tell you about themselves for 10 earth hours without you either leaving, punching them in the throat, or doing both those things while also setting fire to the building? No. The word "auto" is the tipoff, here. This particular subgenre of sports documentaries is, invariably,"

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers commissioned a 10-part docuseries to air on Amazon Prime beginning December 11. The project raises immediate questions about motive given the vanity-driven nature of most long-form sports documentaries. Documentaries ordinarily document notable people or events, but contemporary team-funded series function largely as self-promotional autobiographies. A comprehensive history of a niche franchise offers limited appeal and risks self-congratulation. The subgenre frequently centers on first-person glorification and prolonged self-portraiture that tests audience patience. Prior examples like Michael Jordan’s The Last Dance demonstrated the format’s power and its inherent bias, leaving responsibility for critical viewing largely with audiences.

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