*Spike Lee will bring his talents to ESPN for "30/30," an initiative launching next year to celebrate the sports channel's 30 years of broadcasting.

      Lee and 29 other A-list directors, including Richard Linklater and Davis Guggenheim, have each been recruited by the network to make an hour-long documentary about a sports topic close to his or her heart.

       Lee, a die-hard New York Knicks fan, has yet to announce the nature of his project. Linklater, director of the 2004 remake of "The Bad News Bears," will likely examine aspects of the Rose Bowl, the annual college football tournament that takes place in Los Angeles on New Year's Day. Guggenheim, the Oscar-winning director of "An Inconvenient Truth," will explore a childhood sports hero.

      The documentaries under the newly-launched ESPN Films will begin airing Tuesday nights on ESPN in Sept. 2009 and be televised through 2010.