Lebron James And Tom Brady To Star In Apple TV+ Documentary Series ‘Greatness Code’

Apple
AAPL
confirmed yesterday (May 20) that documentary series Greatness Code co-produced, and featuring, Tom Brady and Lebron James will be hitting the platform on July 10. 

Key facts

The two production companies making the piece are Religion of Sports and Uninterrupted. Religion of Sports was set up by Brady, NFL Hall of Fame inductee Michael Strahan and the director of Greatness Code Emmy award winner Gotham Chopra. Lebron James’ Uninterrupted is the other producer with James and long-time associate Maverick Carter at the helm. Both Carter and Chopra will serve as executive producers.

The first season of the docu-series will be made up of seven episodes with each examining a key moment in an athlete’s career. Outside of James and Brady those athletes include Olympic Gold Medalist and co-captain of the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Alex Morgan, eight-time Olympic champion Usain Bolt, five-time Olympic Gold medalist and 15-time World Champion swimmer Katie Ledecky, renowned snowboarder Shaun White and 11-time world champion surfer Kelly Slater.

The series will be much easier to produce during lockdown with a mixture of archive footage (that has been pre-shot) and master interviews with key contributors. Both production techniques will not need a large physical production presence in attendance which will allow measures to be in place across the making of the series – such as social distancing – to further ensure the safety of the crew.

With no specific timeline around the coronavirus pandemic’s continuation the methodology around making the series and the recent success in the sports documentary space makes the program primed for exploitation. 

A growing force

Apple has had a strong week in the entertainment headlines with further news that Tom Hanks’ Greyhound will take the unprecedented leap of premiering on the platform as well. The film joins a slate in the scripted space that also has Samuel L. Jackson, Nia Long and Anthony Mackie featuring in film The Banker. The subscription-on-demand service has also inked a deal with director Ridley Scott to produce multiple pieces of content. 

In the non-scripted space Apple originals now include On the Rocks starring Bill Murray and Rashida Jones which is directed by Sofia Coppola, Beastie Boys Story, Visible: Out On Television, Dads directed by Bryce Dallas Howard and produced by Ron Howard and Sundance acquisition Boys State.

Capitalizing on the market

The announcement of the show comes three days after The Last Dance, featuring Michael Jordan, released the tenth and final episode of the series to record numbers across multiple platforms including Netflix
NFLX
. The show helped reignite plenty of debate online and across households worldwide as to whether Jordan or James is the greatest basketball player in history. This new documentary will surely capitalize on that audience and continue to fan the flames of opinion for which I’m sure Apple is hoping will lead to record audiences also.