What do you consider essential elements of good filmmaking for one of these? Mostly they just seem to be original highlights interspersed with interviews.
those are essentials if you're telling the story of something like this, but 95% of sports documentaries are the same thing (highlights + interviews, maybe some BTS footage or something). The number of sports docs that get creative are small. sunderland til i die is one of the few ones recently that i think is actually a good one (really, really good). even the last dance basically just relied on never-before-seen footage and some new stories rather than anything groundbreaking
i remember watching the ricky williams 30 for 30 and thinking it looked like a student film
