Straight from a press release here is look at the next installment of REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL. It is TV’s most-honored sports journalism series, with a record 18 Sports Emmy Awards for Outstanding Sports Journalism, returns for more enterprising features and reporting when the show’s 251st edition debuts TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27 (10:00-11:00pm). The show is also available on HBO NOW, HBO GO, HBO On Demand and affiliate portals.
Segments include:
*Desert Storm. REAL SPORTS presents an extended segment revisiting its 2004 undercover exposé on the enslavement of trafficked children who work as jockeys in the Middle Eastern sport of camel racing. The story revealed a dark secret in the United Arab Emirates, the ultra-wealthy Persian Gulf state where the national pastime is camel racing, engaged in by many of the rich and powerful sheiks who rule the country. The jockeys were children as young as three years old from poor third-world countries, some of whom had been kidnapped, and others essentially purchased. Starved and deprived of sleep so that they wouldn’t grow and slow the camels down, they were physically and sexually abused by their masters and often maimed or killed when trying to pilot the 1,500-pound animals.
REAL SPORTS explores the surprising role of the U.S. government in enabling the slavery ring. The original story, presented in Oct. 2004, raised alarms worldwide and triggered a series of events that changed the situation in the UAE and beyond. More than a decade later, REAL SPORTS cameras, led by correspondent Bernard Goldberg, returned to the Persian Gulf to tell that story. Interviews include human rights activist Ansar Burney and former U.S. ambassador-at-large, John Miller. Producer: Joe Perskie.
*Trouble on the Ice. For more than a decade, the biggest story in sports has been concussions in football, diverting attention from the other major American sport with an alarming concussion problem: pro hockey. The NHL is currently the only major American sports institution that denies a link between concussions and the degenerative brain disease CTE has been proven. Critics charge that in failing to admit the game has a problem, the league’s leadership has also been slow to reform rules and policies that would protect their players, while 150 former pros have filed a lawsuit against the NHL for failing to protect them from head injuries.
Now, a growing chorus that includes Hall of Famers Ken Dryden and Eric Lindros (who suffered multiple concussions during his career) is calling for change. REAL SPORTS correspondent David Scott speaks with Dryden and Lindros, who say their beloved game is in crisis and in dire need of change. Producer: Jordan Kronick.
*She’s Got Game. Arguably the best NBA analyst in the business, Doris Burke’s acumen and hard work have made her universally beloved by peers and those in the league. From Providence 
College, where she graduated as the program’s all-time assist leader, she started her broadcast career at the bottom, calling games for her alma mater. What followed was a workmanlike rise through the ranks, from covering women’s college hoops and the WNBA, to working as a sideline reporter in men’s college hoops, to reporting from the NBA sidelines, where she has covered nine straight NBA finals. She made history this year as the first woman to become a full-time NBA game analyst for a national network. REAL SPORTS correspondent Andrea Kremer catches up with Burke to explore her unique journey to the top. Producer: Nick Dolin.
On Jan. 16, the duPont-Columbia University awards committee for excellence in broadcast journalism honored REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL for its expansive investigative story on the International Olympic Committee, which debuted in July 2016, days before the start of the Summer Games in Rio. It marks the fourth time the series has been honored with a prestigious duPont Award, the most of any sports television show in history. The acclaimed IOC exposé captured other top honors in 2017, including the Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Sports Journalism, the Peter Jennings Award from the Overseas Press Club and an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award.
