Candace Parker to produce feature-length documentary exploring impact of Title IX

Candace Parker is at a place in her WNBA career where questions about the future linger in the air.

Whether it’s on podcasts, in press conferences or in the NBA analyst chair at Turner Sports, Parker often shares some iteration of the fact she has more days behind her than ahead. That may be true, but Parker is showing no signs of slowing down.

In the few months since leading the Sky to their first WNBA championship and her second, Parker has announced she is expecting a baby with wife Anna Petrakova, been named AP Player of the Year for the second time in her career and hosted a TED Talk that has over 600,000 views.

Thursday, Turner Sports announced it has green-lit a documentary project with Parker, her production company Baby Hair Productions and Emmy and Academy Award-winning media company, Scout Productions.

This is Baby Hair Productions’ first project and Parker will serve as an executive producer.

The untitled documentary is set to premiere during the 2022 NCAA Division I Men’s Final Four weekend programming on TBS and will share the societal and cultural impact of Title IX, through Parker’s perspective. Viewers will be taken through Parker’s childhood growing up in the Chicago area, her college career at the University of Tennessee where she won two NCAA championships and her illustrious 14-year WNBA career.

“I was fortunate enough to grow up in a time where Title IX afforded me great opportunities and impacted my life,” Parker said in a statement. “I am so excited to have the chance to tell this important story for the younger generation to show the significance Title IX has on culture and life beyond sports.”

Born in 1986, Parker was growing up while women’s collegiate athletics skyrocketed between the 1980s and 1990s because of the passing of Title IX as part of the Education Amendments of 1972. The WNBA’s inaugural season was played in 1997, giving Parker and every other young athlete a league to aspire to play in.

Parker shared the immediate impact the WNBA had on her, saying in her TED Talk that she no longer had to play like Michael Jordan, she could shoot like Cynthia Cooper.

The film will feature interviews with significant sports figures, politicians and businesspeople who will dive into Title IX’s impact over the last 50 years and changes the future holds.

The premiere date will be announced in the coming months.