On Wednesday, ESPN announced the premiere of the latest edition from the ESPN+ Places series, a previously announced tennis series called McEnroe’s Places.
Hosted by analyst John McEnroe, the tennis edition was announced last May along with a hockey version hosted by P.K. Subban and a college basketball version hosted by Sue Bird. P.K.’s Places premiered in May, while Sue’s Places hasn’t debuted yet. Given that the final episode of P.K’s Places premiered last week, it wouldn’t surprise me if Sue’s Places debuted in September after the ten-episode run of McEnroe’s Places.
Here’s a brief synopsis of those featured in McEnroe’s Places, which will feature Peyton Manning in the first episode.
In episode 1, McEnroe meets up with Peyton Manning to explain why tennis is the greatest sport in the world. Peter Fleming shows John how kings, like Henry VIII, exclusively played the game in palaces, and then is joined by his brother, Patrick, to learn how the sport evolved into a backyard sport. Guests this season include Tracy Austin, Bjorn Borg, Michael Chang, Ross Chastain, Chris Evert, Peter Fleming, Taylor Fritz, Rod Laver, Patrick McEnroe, Gabriela Sabatini, Maria Sharapova, Stan Smith, and Wes Welker.
New episodes will premiere each Wednesday on ESPN+ through September 13th, with a break of a couple of weeks between episodes five and six.
The Places series has been easy library content for ESPN, but I feel like we’re just about out of sports to cover. Following the debut of McEnroe’s Places, we now have a series covering tennis, the NFL, college football, baseball, soccer, basketball, hockey, and combat sports, along with the yet-to-debut college basketball edition.
Golf seems like a pretty natural extension, and I’d personally like to see the combat sports series split up and boxing featured in its own edition. Aside from that, I’m not sure where else the franchise can go. Auto racing? Horse racing? Various Olympic sports?
[ESPN]
