On August 9, 1988, the NHL was forever changed with the single stroke of a pen. The Edmonton Oilers, fresh off their fourth Stanley Cup victory in five years, signed a deal that sent Wayne Gretzky, a Canadian national treasure and the greatest hockey player ever to play the game, to the Los Angeles Kings in a multi-player, multi-million dollar deal.

In late March of 1984, a moving company secretly packed up the Baltimore Colts’ belongings and its fleet of vans sneaked off in the darkness of the early morning. Leaving a city of deeply devoted fans in shock and disbelief.

In 1983 the upstart United States Football League (USFL) had the audacity to challenge the almighty NFL.

In October of 1980 Muhammad Ali was preparing to fight for an unprecedented fourth heavyweight title against his friend and former sparring partner Larry Holmes. To say that the great Ali was in the twilight of his career would be generous; most of his admiring fans, friends and fight scribes considered his bravado delusional. What was left for him to prove?

More than two decades after his tragic cocaine overdose, the late Len Bias still leaves more questions than answers. When Bias dropped dead two days after the 1986 NBA Draft, he forever altered our perception of casual drug use and became the tipping point of America's drug crisis in the mid-80's. Instead of becoming an NBA star, he became a one-man deterrent, the athlete who reminded everyone just how dangerous drug use can be.

“The NFL Today” on CBS was one of the preeminent sports programs on television in the early 1980s. It was a perfect combination of reporting, analysis, predictions, humor and talent. But there was no personality on the show more popular than Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder.

Throughout the 1980s, Miami, Florida, was at the center of a racial and cultural shift taking place throughout the country. Overwhelmed by riots and tensions, Miami was a city in flux, and the University of Miami football team served as a microcosm for this evolution.

Reggie Miller single-handedly crushed the hearts of Knick fans multiple times. But it was the 1995 Eastern Conference Semifinals that solidified Miller as Public Enemy #1 in New York City.

By the mid-1980s Paul Westhead had worn out his welcome in the NBA. The best offer he could find came from an obscure small college with little history of basketball. In the same city where he had won an NBA championship with Magic and Kareem, Westhead was determined to perfect his non-stop run-and-gun offensive system at Loyola Marymount. His shoot-first offense appeared doomed to fail until Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble, two talented players from Westhead’s hometown of Philadelphia, arrived gift-wrapped at his doorstep.

On Valentine’s Day 1993, 17-year-old Bethel High School basketball star Allen Iverson was bowling in Hampton, Va., with five high school friends. It was supposed to be an ordinary evening, but it became a night that defined Iverson’s young life.

Fantasy Sports is estimated to be a $4 billion industry that boasts over 30 million participants and a league for almost every sport imaginable. But for all this success, the story of the game’s inception is little known.

Through personal footage recorded with Williams during his year away from football and beyond, this doc will give this misunderstood athlete the opportunity to tell his intriguing story in his own words.

Rugby has long been viewed in South Africa as a game for the white population, and the country’s success in the sport has been a true source of Afrikaner pride. When the 50-year-old policies and entrenched injustices of apartheid were finally overthrown in 1994, Nelson Mandela’s new government began rebuilding a nation badly in need of racial unity. So the world was watching when South Africa played host to the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

In 1982 Raiders owner Al Davis beat the NFL in court and moved his team from Oakland to Los Angeles. With a squad as colorful as its owner, the Raiders captivated a large number of black and Hispanic fans in L.A. at a time when gang warfare, immigration and the real estate boom were rapidly changing the city.

Do you remember where you were on June 17, 1994? Thanks to a wide array of unrelated, coast-to-coast occurrences, this Friday has come to be known for its firsts, lasts, triumphs and tragedy.

Born with the same last name in the same city in Colombia, Andrés Escobar and Pablo Escobar shared a fanatical childhood love for soccer. The former would abandon his studies to pursue his dream, becoming the most beloved defender in the history of Colombian soccer, while the latter would climb through the ranks of the criminal underground to become not only the most notorious drug baron of all time, but also the secret weapon responsible for Colombian soccer’s unprecedented rise from obscurity to greatness.

In 1985, at the tender age of 13, Mat Hoffman entered into the BMX circuit as an amateur, and by 16 he had risen to the professional level. Throughout his storied career, Hoffman has ignored conventional limitations, instead, focusing his efforts on the purity of the sport and the pursuit of “what’s next."

In the fall of 1993, in his prime and at the summit of the sports world, Michael Jordan walked away from pro basketball to rekindle a childhood ambition of playing baseball.

In 1982, when Cody Webster and a small group of friends from Kirkland, WA, took the field for the Little League World Series Championship, they stepped onto a much bigger field than the one they saw. A nation facing troubled times, America was looking for inspiration. Filmmaker Al Szymanski tells the story of how a group of Little Leaguers provided that inspiration and answers the question: What ever happened to the kids from Kirkland?

On the evening of Sept. 7, 1996, Mike Tyson, the WBC heavyweight champion, attempted to take Bruce Seldon’s WBA title at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. At this point in his career, Tyson’s fights had become somewhat of a cultural phenomenon, where the ever present hype of the professional boxing scene would come face to face with the worlds of big business, Hollywood, and hip hop

Through a series of personal conversations, filmmakers Nancy Stern Winters and Lisa Lax, along with producer Hannah Storm, will tell the story of one of the greatest one-on-one sports rivalries and capture these two extraordinary athletes’ views on tennis and an ever-changing world.

Love him or hate him, there is no denying that George Steinbrenner has been one of the most colorful and successful owners in contemporary sports. Heading up a group that bought the New York Yankees in 1973 for $10 million, “King George” emphatically branded the world’s most celebrated sports franchise as his own.

In 1980, Terry Fox continued to fight bone cancer and deep despair in pursuit of a singular, motivating vision—to run across Canada. Three years after having his right leg amputated six inches above the knee, Fox set out to cover more than a marathon’s distance each day until he reached the shores of Victoria, British Columbia.

When Oct. 16, 2004 came to a merciful end, the Yankees had pounded out 19 runs against the Red Sox, extending their ALCS lead to 3 games to none. The next night, the Yankees took a 4-3 lead into the bottom of the ninth, then turned the game over to Mariano Rivera, the best relief pitcher in postseason history. But the cold October winds of change began to blow. MLB Productions takes an in depth look at how over four days an unlikely group of Red Sox overcame the inevitability of their destiny.

Drazen Petrovic and Vlade Divac were two friends who grew up together sharing the common bond of basketball. Together, they lifted the Yugoslavian National team to unimaginable heights. "Once Brothers" tells the gripping tale of how circumstances beyond their control tore apart these two friends.

Natural. Rock star. Outsider. In the 1980s, race car driver Tim Richmond lived his life the way he raced cars – wide open. A flamboyant showman who basked in the attention of the media and fans, Richmond drew comparisons to racing legends for his on-track performances. But soon his freewheeling lifestyle caught up to him. He unexpectedly withdrew from the NASCAR racing circuit, reportedly suffering from double pneumonia. In reality, the diagnosis was much more dire: He had AIDS.

In 1981, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela ignited a fire that spread from LA to New York—and beyond. Mexican-born and Los Angeles-raised director Cruz Angeles revisits those times in his city and remembers the euphoria that revitalized a community dying for a hero.
In this unprecedented look at the myth and the man, Fernando Valenzuela himself shares his wit and perspective. Even 20 years later, “Fernandomania” lives.

Few athletes in Olympic history have reached such heights and depths as Marion Jones. But in October 2007, she finally admitted what so many had long suspected -- that she had indeed used steroids. Calling herself a liar and a cheat in a federal courtroom, Jones was sentenced to six months in prison. Now a free woman, Jones is running in a new direction in life and taking time to reflect.

In 1981, college athletic recruiting changed forever as a dozen big-time football programs sat waiting for the decision by a physically powerful and lightning-quick high school running back named Marcus Dupree.

From 1981-1984, the Southern Methodist University Mustangs owned the best record in college football. Wins became the only thing that mattered with flagrant & frequent NCAA violations the norm. NCAA imposed "the death penalty" on a football program for the first & only time in its history. This is the story of Dallas in the 1980's & the greed, power & corruption that spilled from the oil fields onto the football field & all the way to the Governor's Mansion.