HBO's REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL to Return 8/20

By: Aug. 15, 2013
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Now in its 19th season, REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL, TV's most honored sports journalism series and the only sports program recognized with a prestigious 2012 George Foster Peabody Award, presents more enterprising features and reporting when its 197th edition, available in HDTV, debuts at a special time TUESDAY, AUG. 20 (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO.

Other HBO playdates: Aug. 20 (3:10 a.m.), 22 (8:00 a.m., 5:15 p.m.), 25 (9:00 a.m.) and 28 (1:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m.), and Sept. 3 (7:00 p.m., 2:55 a.m.) and 7 (10:30 a.m., 12:30 a.m.)

HBO2 playdates: Aug. 21 (2:20 p.m., 10:00 p.m.), 26 (9:00 a.m.) and 31 (2:30 p.m.), and Sept. 1 (9:05 a.m.), 6 (4:45 p.m.) and 11 (10:00 a.m., 11:55 p.m.)

HBO On Demand availability: Aug. 26-Sept. 16. The show will also be available on HBO GO.

Segments include:

*It Gives You Wings. Despite increasing competition in the energy drink market, Red Bull continues to dominate with sales exceeding 5.2 billion cans per year. Unlike most industry leaders, the company has largely avoided traditional advertising, focusing its marketing initiatives almost exclusively on sponsoring extreme athletes. Last October, capping a campaign seven years and millions of dollars in the making, Austria's Felix Baumgartner successfully committed a free fall jump of 24 miles from the edge of the stratosphere in a marketing bonanza that remains the most heavily streamed event in Youtube history, having garnered more than eight million viewers. And Baumgartner is just one of more than 500 athletes, mostly from extreme sports such as snowboarding and skateboarding, who have helped create a brand identity most companies can only admire. Correspondent Jon Frankel examines how Red Bull's unique marketing strategy has helped drive extreme sports from Fringe appeal to mainstream notoriety.

Producer: Jordan Kronick.

*DDP. Few athletes have a tougher Life After sports than professional wrestlers. The fast lifestyle that accompanies year-round entertaining across the country can take its toll on bodies and minds, resulting in a disproportionate amount of former wrestlers becoming drug dependent and struggling with mental-health issues. In stark contrast to the sport's high-flying, musclebound theatrics, yoga is now helping rehabilitate some stars of yesteryear. Diamond Dallas Page, famous for his success in the WCW and WWF, created DDP Yoga after finding that yoga helped ease not only his physical ailments but also his depression, and has striven to help others from his era, most notably Scott "Razor Ramon" Hall and Jake "The Snake" Roberts. Correspondent Frank Deford sits down with the wrestlers to discuss how yoga has helped their lives in a way they never thought possible.

Producer: Maggie Burbank.

*Andy Roddick. Andy Roddick, now 30, retired from tennis in Aug. 2012 after a fourth-round Exit at the U.S. Open, where he captured his lone Grand Slam title in 2003. Retirement has changed not only Roddick's life, but also The Face of American tennis. For the first time since 1973, when rankings began, there are currently no Americans in the Top 20 singles rankings for the male ATP World Tour. This makes the Nebraska native the last great American champ in a group that includes John McEnroe, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. Meanwhile, the outspoken Roddick has found a niche in broadcasting, recently signing on to co-host "Fox Sports Live" on the newly established Fox Sports 1 network. In this REAL SPORTS/Sports Illustrated collaboration, Roddick sits down with correspondent Mary Carillo on the eve of the 2013 U.S. Open to talk about his post-tennis endeavors and the state of The Game they both love.

Producers: Nick Dolin.

*Trump. Donald Trump is no stranger to controversy. In 2008, the high-flying New York tycoon embarked on a mission to build one of the greatest luxury golf resorts in the world - along with hundreds of homes and condos, plus a hotel and conference center - near the city of Aberdeen on the historic northeast coast of Scotland. The project sparked serious opposition from locals who felt the venture would spoil their pristine coastline, but he broke ground in 2010 and opened Trump International Golf Links in July 2012.

Now Trump has a new fight on his hands, this time with the Scottish government, which plans to erect 600-foot wind turbines off the coast of his golf course in pursuit of clean energy, threatening The View of the North Sea from his newly minted resort. REAL SPORTS correspondent Bernard Goldberg reconnects with Trump and travels back to Scotland to see how others are reacting to the newest development in this ongoing saga.

Producers: Tim Walker, Beret Remak.

REAL SPORTS was the sole sports program recognized by the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication with a 2012 George F. Peabody Award for broadcast excellence. In addition, it is the only sports program ever honored with the duPont Award, first in 2005 and again in 2012.

At the 34th annual Sports Emmy Awards on May 7, REAL SPORTS captured two trophies, for Outstanding Edited Sports Series and for Outstanding Long Feature for the Aug. 2012 profile of former New Orleans Saints player Steve Gleason. REAL SPORTS has won the Sports Emmy for Outstanding Sports Journalism 15 times and has received 25 Sports Emmy Awards overall.

Follow REAL SPORTS updates on HBO.com/realsports and facebook.com/realsports, or join the conversation on Twitter using #RealSports.

The executive producer of REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL is Rick Bernstein; Joe Perskie is senior producer.



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