Sport and Cinema.com

Fans of the Friday Night Lights television series will once again be able to recapture the drama of the Dillon Panthers as ESPN will air the entire series with episodes set to premiere on July 12.

Tribeca, in partnership with ESPN Films, has announced a summer sale offering for the first time a handful of independent sports films to over 40 million homes via VOD.

Authors Tobias Moskowitz and Jon Wertheim present an intriguing guide to a wide array of both complex and heretofore seemingly mundane topics that go far beyond the scoreboard to help fans get at the truths of sports

The curtain has fallen on a new and compelling “television film festival”. ESPN has just concluded its opening run of thirty engaging and provocative movies, premiering 14 months ago. Meticulous and sharply observed, this “30 for 30” project has been as ambitious an undertaking as anything the network has done.

He has been called by Dallas Cowboys’ all-pro punter Mat McBriar as the “Godfather of Australian punting”. Bennett, a native of Sydney, followed a brilliant career Down Under in Aussie Rules football (AFL) to help pioneer a path for Australians by succeeding in the NFL.

The former full forward for the Melbourne Demons, who went on to excel for the San Diego Chargers and was named to the NFL’s 1990s All-Decade Team, is credited for the introduction into the NFL of the “Aussie Rules kick” or “Drop Punt” as it is known in Australia. The technique was instrumental in the advancement of Australians into the NFL. Currently more than half of the punters in pro football make use of the Aussie Rules punt in pooch-punt situations.

From their early days as a new expansion team in the early 60s under tempermental hall of fame quarterback-turned-coach Norm Van Brocklin and the glory days under Bud Grant with led by their Purple People Eaters on defense to some of the most brilliant offense in NFL history with Fran Tarkenton, Chuck Foreman, Randy Moss and Brett Favre with Adrian Peterson, Viking fans have enjoyed an exciting half-century of pro football in the Twin Cities including several Super Bowl appearances.

For football fans growing up with the New York Giants comes this treasure trove of insightful anecdotes and personal experiences covering some of the biggest games in this storied franchise’s history.

Authors Baker and Corbett adroitly let those who played, coached and watched these pivotal thirteen games create a riveting collection of mind’s-eye details from each of the games selected. (Interestingly the authors chose NOT to cover the so-called ‘greatest game ever played’, the Giants vs. Colts in the 1958 NFL Championship, saying it has already been given ‘plenty of attention’.)

New Orleans – With a little luck on the injury-side of things, the defending Super Bowl champions are poised to win it all again, a rarity these days. But they even strengthened themselves in the draft with Miami tight end Jimmy Graham, a former basketball standout drawing similarities to Antonio Gates.

As part of ESPN’s “30 for 30” film initiative celebrating the network’s 30th anniversary comes this documentary from rapper-turned-filmmaker Ice Cube. The program debuts on ESPN Tuesday at 8pm ET.

In its 91 year history, no one of direct Chinese ancestry has ever played in the National Football League. That is likely to change by week’s end.