It turns out that Baltimore Ravens 30 for 30 won’t be the next one premiering.
On Thursday, ESPN announced the Jeanette Lee 30 for 30, initially announced in May, will premiere on ESPN on December 13th at 8 PM ET. The film is titled Jeanette Lee Vs., and ca also be streamed on ESPN+.
Here’s more about the film from ESPN’s release.
She was like nothing else her sport had seen. A vision of confidence, even swagger, as she stalked the billiards table. Dressed, always, in her signature color, with a two-fingered glove on her bridge hand and a stony, icy glaze that never seemed to change. The 30 for 30 film returns with Lee to her origins, Brooklyn, New York, where as the young child of Korean immigrants, she suffered from scoliosis, a painful spinal condition that required surgery. Lee rebelled as a teenager, and fell in love with billiards one night when she walked into a pool hall in Manhattan. Within a few years, she was playing tournaments and headed towards the professional circuit. Soon, women’s billiards was a mainstay on the fledgling ESPN2 network, and Lee’s unapologetic approach to self-promotion made her a television star.
Even as Lee became one of the top-ranked pool players in the world, her back issues never entirely went away. Then in 2021 came something more frightening: a diagnosis of ovarian cancer. As the film illustrates through extensive access to her life today, it’s a struggle she continues to fight, now as a single mom with the support of her children and extended family. It’s a poignant coda to a story about a woman who’s been battling her whole life and who remains one of the more distinctive stars to ever emerge on the sports landscape.
The film is directed by Ursula Liang (9-Man, Down a Dark Stairwell), and ESPN worked with with former exec Connor Schell and his Words + Pictures production company on the film.
This seems like a classic 30 for 30 topic that won’t get much mainstream attention (as opposed to volumes like Rodman, Vick, Lance, etc), but will be quite interesting and watchable. 30 for 30 is at its best when it explores stories and people that aren’t deeply embedded in our collective consciousness, and Lee’s story could fit that bill.
[ESPN]
