ESPN’s ‘The Last Dance’ becomes network’s most-watched documentary

Unsurprisingly, ESPN’s 10-part “The Last Dance” documentary has broken ratings records for the network.

Sunday night’s airing of the final two parts in the series averaged 5.6 million viewers across all ESPN platforms, the network said in a news release. The average rating for all 10 episodes was also 5.6 million viewers. That makes it the most watched ESPN documentary of all time, besting 2012’s “You Don’t Know Bo,” which averaged 3.6 million viewers.

The premiere episode was the highest-rated of all 10 parts, averaging more than 6.3 million viewers. Part nine, the penultimate episode, became the third-highest rated of the series when it aired Sunday.

These ratings also don’t include viewers who watched the documentary after its initial airing via recording or streaming. ESPN says when time-shifted viewing is taken into account, more than 15 million people watched the first episode.

With no live sports going on in the United States and ongoing interest in Michael Jordan’s Bulls, this was always destined to be a huge ratings winner. It has delivered in a big way, and the network will be thrilled.

Plus, it’s not the only record Jordan has helped break lately.