REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL
HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET
Here’s another valuable, long-running nonfiction TV series with a new installment tonight. Bryant Gumbel’s HBO sports news show began in 1995 – and 25 years later, he and it are still going strong. Very strong, as he and his staff of correspondents have been way ahead of the curve in examining the ways in which professional and even amateur sports intersect in the areas of race, finance, safety, and other issues. Real Sports reports monthly during its season, and its most recent installment, in June, included a no-holds-barred discussion about how and whether pro sports should resume during a pandemic. Now it’s a month later, and this new edition is arriving – in TV’s increasingly familiar stay-at-home pandemic form – just as major league baseball was scheduled to hold opening-day games for its new, virus-shortened season later this week.