Picture: Wolfe Releasing
Sarah Dowland’s buzzy sports documentary on Sue Bird, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, will be available on Netflix in the United States. We’ve learned that the documentary will make its SVOD debut on Thursday, June 6th, 2024.
Produced by Black Bar Mitzvah, Jigsaw Productions, and Waffle Iron Entertainment, the documentary retraces the life and career of WNBA star Sue Bird. Bird has been in the game for over twenty years and has a stack of medals to show for it, including five Olympic gold medals.
The documentary picks up on Bird and fiancée, Megan Rapinoe (U.S. soccer star), confronting the thought of retiring from the only life she’s ever known.
The 98-minute documentary received mostly positive reviews following its initial premiere, with RogerEbert’s Monica Castillo writing, “It’s an emotional journey as well as a career retrospective, celebratory in spirit and a tribute to one of the most award-winning players in the league’s history.” At the time of publishing, the doc has an 86% rating on RottenTomatoes.
Wolfe Releasing is the distributor behind the title acquiring the title back in early March 2024 following its initial Sundance launch. The distributor is best known for its library of LGBTQ+ films, with its more recent hits including Ahead of the Curve (released on Netflix in May 2024), The Sixth Reel, and Good Kisser. Until now, the documentary has been exclusively available on VOD services like Apple TV, Prime Video and Wolfe on Demand.
Business Insider first reported the documentary heading to Netflix earlier this year.
Picture: Wolfe Releasing
The pickup is part of a broad charge into getting into sports programming over the past few years, but especially in the last year. This year, we’re seeing a constant drip of 30 for 30 documentaries arrive, plus Netflix itself has an exhaustive lineup of sports docs in the works.
This is one of just several streaming debut licenses Netflix has for June 2024. We’ve already seen several added so far, including Godzilla Minus One, Simon, and Cold Copy, all dropping as part of the first-of-the-month additions.
For more on what’s coming up on Netflix in June 2024 – keep it locked to What’s on Netflix, where we keep the most up-to-date listings for the US and the UK.
Will you be checking out the new sports documentary? Let us know in the comments below.
