The Last Dance Hits Big On Netflix Internationally

You don’t have to be a sports fan to be gripped by the story of Michael Jordan's last season with the Chicago Bulls, as played out in ESPN's documentary series The Last Dance. Licensed by Netflix for the international market, it seems the rest of the world is just as taken by the quintessentially American story.

In a tweet, Netflix revealed its viewership numbers for The Last Dance, with 23.8 million households checking out the basketball documentary.

While the way Netflix counts viewers is a little less rigorous than it used to be, we can compare this number with some other figures recently released by the streaming network. Quirky doco hit Tiger King counted 64 million household views in its first month, while at the time of the report Ozark Season 3 was projected to reach 29 million households, closer to the number who’ve checked out The Last Dance.

The docu-series aired exclusively on ESPN in the United States, being pushed up from a scheduled June air date to help combat flagging ratings while live sports are postponed or cancelled due to COVID-19. The premiere episode reached 5.73 million viewers in the US.

The Last Dance is now back for a second run in the US, with a series of re-runs on ABC beginning on May 23, and airing two episodes every Saturday until the finale on June 20.