REVEALED: Michael Jordan’s The Last Dance’s Staggering Viewership Numbers

The first episode of ESPN’s documentary on Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan, ‘The Last Dance’, aired on Sunday and unsurprisingly, had a huge viewership.

Initially, ‘The Last Dance’ was to air in July. But last month, with the global pandemic, ESPN announced that it would be moving up the release to April 19. ESPN took the decision, considering that with all major sporting activities screeching to a halt, the documentary would cheer fans.

“As society navigates this time without live sports, viewers are still looking to the sports world to escape and enjoy a collective experience,” ESPN said in a statement last month. “We’ve heard the calls from fans asking us to move up the release date for this series, and we’re happy to announce that we’ve been able to accelerate the production schedule to do just that.”

“The Last Dance” on Michael Jordan becomes the most-viewed ESPN documentary

The move was fruitful for them, as ‘The Last Dance’ averaged 6.1 million viewers for episodes 1 and 2 across ESPN & ESPN2 according to the numbers that ESPN released. While episode one averaged 6.3 million viewers, the second episode averaged 5.8 million viewers.

The ESPN documentary surpassed the 2012 film, “You Don’t Know Bo”, based on former baseball and football player Bo Jackson.