ESPN turns 30 this month, and a long three decades it’s been.

Sort of commemorating the milestone, ESPN will debut its “30 for 30″ documentary series next month, with the first film chronicling the trade of Wayne Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings airing 8 PM on October 6th.

The “30 for 30″ hype machine will kick into high gear over the next month, although the series itself will be drawn out over the next year, with more than two-thirds of the films not airing until 2010.

I’m excited to see what ESPN can do with this. Documentaries are, to my mind, the purest form of video journalism alive, a confluence of style and substance that just isn’t common these days.

With their financial clout, ESPN has been able to bankroll 30 films. There’s a serious dearth of great sports documentaries this decade, so I’m hoping there will be more than a few with this group.

The Daily Press has a very good feature on the Iverson documentary by Steve James which looks at the media storm surrounding when Iverson was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for mob violence.

In it, David Teel also gives a broadside review of the project:

“Unlike many of the network’s incessant promotions, this series drips with promise, and if one screener’s hunch is correct, James’ contribution may eclipse “Hoop Dreams,” his award-winning portrayal of two inner-city Chicago high school basketball players during the early 1990s.”

I have to agree. This is among the most impressive endeavors that ESPN has ever taken on, and it’s the kind of thing I’d like to see them do more often.

ESPN often has to work hard to maintain their identity as journalists, and it often seems that there are two versions of the media giant: the side that invests in quality news magazines such as E:60, Outside the Lines, and shows like The Sports Reporters, and the side that seems be promoting itself at a volume barely below screaming.

While the 30 for 30 series clearly has taken its PR lessons seriously, here’s hoping it ends up being more of the former.

It’s obviously too early  to say how this series will ultimately turn out, having not seen the films, but even were it to fail, “30 for 30″ would still be a big step forward for the company.