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There is a scene in Episode 5 of the sensational new Netflix documentary “Court of Gold” (debuting this week) that highlights the remarkable access the production team received while covering the Paris Olympics’ men’s basketball tournament.

Connor Schell, a former ESPN executive who now runs Words + Pictures and is behind the Prime Video doc series ‘Game 7,’ argues that the sports anthology format is ripe for a comeback.

Does the sports anthology documentary series have a future? ESPN revolutionized the format in 2009 with the launch of 30 for 30. Originally planned as 30 documentaries connected to the channel’s 30th anniversary, it has since become a documentary franchise in and of itself. Connor Schell helped create that franchise for ESPN alongside Bill Simmons. Now running his own company, Words + Pictures (it is part of Peter Chernin’s The North Road Company), Schell is trying to rethink the sports anthology with Game 7, which debuted on Prime Video Oct. 22.

EXCLUSIVE: Words + Pictures, the documentary production company founded by former ESPN exec Connor Schell and backed by Peter Chernin’s The North Road Company, has promoted two of its senior leaders.

Libby Geist has been promoted to President and Aaron Cohen to Chief Creative Officer (CCO).

It comes amid a busy year for the company, which is behind projects including feature doc Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which sold to Warner Bros. after its Sundance debut.

Geist was previously EVP and head of documentaries, having joined the company at its 2021 launch. She has overseen series and films including Apple’s Super League: The War for Football, ABC/ESPN’s recent Full Court Press, which followed women’s college basketball stars including Caitlin Clark, and Super/Man.

This moving documentary on HBO recounts the life and career of the American actor, which were upended by a paralyzing accident in 1995.

If you happen to need a good cry, you can’t go wrong with “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story,” a documentary about decent people, bewildering misfortune and how bad luck can have a ripple effect—especially if you are lucky enough to have people who love you. If you don’t want to cry, you probably will.

The animating concept of Game 7, the anthology Prime Video docuseries from Words + Pictures, is right there in the title.

In a best-of-seven series to determine champions in the NHL, NBA and Major League Baseball, moments in the final game (whenever it occurs) are instantly memorable due to the intensely pressurized circumstances. Any New Yorker who was alive in 1994 can tell you where they were when the Rangers ended a 54-year drought and won the Stanley Cup. Even-longer-suffering Chicago Cubs fans survived extra innings and a rain delay on the road to see their team win its first World Series in 108 years.

Words + Pictures saw success of the sporting kind with Amazon’s “Giannis: The Marvelous Journey,” Netflix’s “Under Pressure: The U.S. Women’s World Team” and “NASCAR: Full Speed.” Geist, promoted to president this year, developed and exec produced ESPN+’s “Full Court Press,” featuring Caitlin Clark, Kamilla Cardoso and Kiki Rice. Chamberlin, leading Full Day, developed and produced “The Netflix Cup,” the streamer’s first-ever live sports event, and “The Netflix Slam.”

Change you’d like to see? “I wonder if the appetite for big ‘tentpole’ documentaries and series will calm a bit, making space for smaller stories, which I often find the most compelling,” says Geist. “There are so many incredible, unknown stories and we are rooting for there to be a strong market for that again.”

Most memorable personality? “Caitlin Clark. Sports is the ultimate reality show and she was consistently amazing,” Schell says. Chamberlin agrees: “Caitlin Clark. The Caitlin Clark show
was the biggest thing on TV this spring. She’s so fun to watch and consistently does things you’ve never seen before.”

The Superman actor’s three kids open up about their father’s life after the tragic accident that left him paralyzed — including how he found joy and a new sense of purpose despite never walking again.

When Christopher Reeve’s children Matthew, Alexandra, and Will Reeve were little, their dad — who became a global sensation after he was cast in the 1978 film Superman — was the kind of guy who truly could do anything: fly planes, sail yachts, ski, ice skate, ride horses, play the piano.

He was also whip-smart and studied at Cornell and Juilliard. But as much as he seemed like a real-life hero, it was how he dealt with his life after his fall from a horse in 1995 that left him paralyzed from the neck down that left the biggest impact on his kids.

Production is underway on Celtics City, a multipart documentary series on the 18-time NBA champion Boston Celtics from HBO Sports Documentaries and 30 for 30 co-creators Bill Simmons and Connor Schell. Directed by Emmy winner Lauren Stowell, the series will premiere on HBO and will stream on Max in 2025.

NASCAR Studios and Words + Pictures have partnered to form Full Speed Entertainment, a new production partnership that will develop and produce racing documentaries, series, special events studio shows and podcasts.

One of the banner’s first projects will be Season 2 of the NASCAR docuseries “Full Speed,” Variety has learned. The new season is set to debut on Netflix in 2025.

Connor Schell and Chernin Entertainment’s nonfiction banner Words + Pictures is getting ready for its next red carpet moment – the Oscars preshow on Sunday – via Full Day Productions, its fledgling live entertainment and unscripted specials production arm.