Michael Jordan Scores First Emmy For ‘The Last Dance’, Netflix’s ‘Tiger King’ Shut Out In All Six Categories
He’s won six NBA championships and is widely considered the greatest basketball player of all time and tonight Michael Jordan helped the team behind ESPN’s The Last Dance win an Emmy.
The Last Dance beat Netflix’s Tiger King, Hulu’s Hillary, PBS’ American Masters and HBO’s McMillion$ to win Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.
The category was one of the most competitive at this year’s Creative Arts Emmys and Jordan, a man who knows how to win, helped the team get over the line.
The battle was particularly competitive this year since Netflix’s series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, starring Joe Exotic and his cast of animal lovers and rivals, was, along with The Last Dance, one of the most talked about series to premiere at the start of the COVID-19 lockdown. Tiger King was shutout of all six categories it was nominated in.
Director Jason Hehir thanked his “wonderful” partners including the NBA, ESPN, Netflix and Mandalay Sports Media. “Thank you to Michael Jordan himself for giving us his time, his honesty and his candor and the other 105 people who sat down and gave their time and their honesty to make the story what it was. I hope we brought a little bit of brightness to a dark and difficult year and I hope you all stay safe and be well,” he added. (Watch the speech below)
It marks ESPN’s first Emmy win in this category, having previously been nominated three times for its 30 for 30 strand.
Earlier this year, Hehir told Deadline that Bulls star Jordan may have been tempted to sit for his first long-form documentary interview about his career when a few questions began to be asked about his GOAT status.
“It’s no small coincidence that around the time that he agreed to participate, the Golden State Warriors were in the midst of a 73-win season, which beat the Bulls 72-10 season by one game, LeBron James was in the midst of a championship season with the Cleveland Cavaliers and all of a sudden a discussion was starting to arise, ‘Is LeBron as good as Michael, is Michael the greatest, is there a conversation to be had now?’,” said Hehir.
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