‘Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel’ to Salute Kobe Bryant

By Michael Malone
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel returns Jan. 28 on HBO, and will salute Kobe Bryant, the basketball star who died in a helicopter crash Jan. 26. Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel marks 25 years on the air in April.

Real Sports “revisits two longform pieces on Bryant that bookended his prolific career: A 2000 feature reported by James Brown when Kobe was in his fourth season and a 2016 profile from correspondent Andrea Kremer as Bryant was bringing the curtain down on his NBA career and transitioning to new endeavors in entertainment, sports and business,” said HBO.

Segments in the season premiere include “The Reconstruction Games”, on the nuclear meltdown that followed the earthquake and tsunami in Japan nine years ago; how the nation is preparing to host the Olympics this summer; and a one-on-one with Fox reporter Erin Andrews conducted by Soledad O’Brien.

Real Sports premiered in April 1995. The new season will be number 26.

The show’s executive producers are Peter Nelson, Rick Bernstein and Joe Perskie. 

Michael Malone
Michael Malone

Michael Malone, senior content producer at B+C/Multichannel News, covers network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television. He hosts the podcasts Busted Pilot, about what’s new in television, and Series Business, a chat with the creator of a new program, and writes the column “The Watchman.” He joined B+C in 2005. His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Playboy and New York magazine.