Uses and Gratifications of “The Last Dance” and the Viewing Intention for a Chicago Bulls Game: A Sports Documentary Series as a Promotional Tool

Introduction

Documentary films are generally understood to creatively represent and depict real events in order to entertain, inform, and influence viewers (Hughes, 1996; Juel, 2006; Reiss, 2019). Documenting events on film or video as close as possible to reality can be exciting for viewers and boost the effect that the conveyed message has on its recipients (Pettersson, 1993). In the second-half of the twentieth century, television (TV) sets became more advanced and gained widespread acceptance around the world, leading to the adoption in households, businesses, and institutions (Diggs-Brown, 2011). With TV broadcasters able to reach larger audiences with a wider array of shows, they became further able to provide more financial support to documentary films producers in order to produce better quality shows (Hughes, 1996). Eventually, TV grew to become one of the most important media channels to communicate historical events through documentaries, which led to the adoption of specific aesthetic and narrative forms and elements, like the one’s applied in feature films (Ebbrecht, 2007). This would enhance the entertainment value of documentary films, making them even more appealing to a wider, general audience. The technological advancements in consumer electronics, internet, and broadband connectivity of the early twenty-first century, enabled companies to build media and entertainment channels that are directly available through the internet, i.e. in an online browser or mobile app, hence, disrupting the way people consume films and videos (Balbi & Magaudda, 2018). This has allowed consumers to access audiovisual media products faster and more conveniently through linear-delayed or subscription-based viewing services, as compared to linear viewing services on traditional TV or in movie theatres; in many cases, people are now able to watch a film or an episode of a show at their convenience, without having to be in front of a specified screen at a time set by a broadcaster or a movie theater (Afilipoaie et al, 2021).

Looking at this opportunity from the perspective of a sports organization, it becomes legitimate to argue that offering sports fans non-fictional footage, such as behind-the-scenes, interviews or expert commentary of or about their favorite team and athletes, along a certain narrative, for example through social media videos, may strengthen their association with the franchise or club and, thus, bolster fans’ interest in the sports product, which may be the game, championship, tournament or similar (Goldsmith, 2013; Hipke & Hachtmann, 2014). Videos on social media are often produced as short-form videos to quickly document and share a real-life moment from the respective sports brand with fans and followers (Newman et al., 2013). Nevertheless, despite the wide reach social media videos can offer to sports organizations, they lack the narrative depth and aesthetic brilliance that professionally-produced long-form sports documentaries can offer (Vogan, 2014).