Chicago Bulls: The Last Dance was everything we needed it to be

The Last Dance gave us an inside look at the 1998 Chicago Bulls but provided so much more.

The Last Dance, the highly anticipated in-depth look at the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls, has sadly come to an end. Director Jason Hehir’s masterpiece aired its final episodes, numbers nine and ten,  Sunday night on ESPN. Since April 19th, fans not only of the Bulls but of sports in general, have been captivated by the behind-the-scenes look at one of the greatest teams in all of professional sports. In doing so, it gave sports fans exactly what they needed at this difficult time.

You might recall that the documentary was originally scheduled to air beginning in June. However, ESPN decided to move up the release date to April, which, in hindsight, was a terrific move.

On March 11, 2020, the sports world fundamentally changed for the foreseeable future. It was on this night that the last major sporting event (an NBA game) was played. The league suspended its season late that evening, and we all know what happened next. Baseball delayed the start of their season, hockey remains in limbo, and while football has provided some level of distraction, its 2020 season remains firmly in doubt.

It’s fair to say that sports fans have been starving for content. Collectively, we have resorted to watching classic games whose outcome we already know or scouring the networks for any live sports action. That need for a fix has even led some to wake up at 3 a.m. to watch baseball from Korea.

But becoming nocturnal isn’t an option for everyone, and so for the rest of us, we are thankful for everything The Last Dance provided, which at its core was a much-needed distraction from reality. Whenever the world around us has been filled with fear, or despair, or uncertainty, we have at least had sports to turn to for that distraction. In a cruel twist of fate, the very thing causing that fear and uncertainty today has taken away that distraction.

However, The Last Dance has filled that void. It has provided us with the content we have craved, dominating the conversations around the virtual watercoolers on Zoom, or the WhatsApp chat with our friends. It has given us moments of complete shock and made us sit up in our chairs, just as live sports has always done.

Although it has sadly come to an end, as all good things do, we are grateful for the distraction, if briefly, from COVID-19. And now we turn our attention back to the return of live sports, reinvigorated by the series which also reminded us just how much we love the very thing we’re missing.