REAL Sports with Bryant Gumbel - Season 26

Crossroads
Bryant Gumbel interviews dozens of industry leaders to find out how two plagues -- COVID-19 and systemic racial injustice -- have affected the sports world.

Black in Bellaire
Real Sports gets an update from Robbie Tolan, a former MLB prospect who was racially profiled and shot by police at his family's home in Texas in 2009.

Dangerous Games
Universities across the country are largely shut down with the exception of one group: college athletes. David Scott examines the health and safety measures being instituted by the NCAA and universities as they look to resume college football in the fall.

Skid Row
Jon Frankel profiles Superior Court Judge Craig Mitchell who founded LA's Skid Row Running Club to help individuals with drug and alcohol abuse – which has proven to be a lifeline for many, especially during the pandemic.

Game Over?
Host Bryant Gumbel is joined by football reporter Peter King (NBC Sports), basketball reporter David Aldridge (The Athletic), and baseball reporter Tom Verducci (Sports Illustrated, MLB Network) for a candid discussion about the state of the respective sports they cover.

Letter Perfect
Real Sports reflects on a story first aired in June 2016 featuring kids labeled "mental athletes" and how they've turned brain games like Spelling Bees, Scrabble, and memory challenges into competitive sports complete with raucous crowds and television coverage.

A Cuban American from Miami, Fla., Eddy Alvarez was a speedskating prodigy who realized his full potential when he took home silver at the Winter Olympics in 2014. Along the way, though, he never gave up on his life-long goal of playing baseball. After retiring from speedskating, Alvarez spent six years in the Minor Leagues and became the unlikeliest of prospects. As the Miami Marlins' roster was decimated by COVID infections this summer, Alvarez, 30, made his big-league debut. 

A day before a mixed martial arts fight, competitors determined to gain a competitive edge and fight at a lower weight class often dangerously dehydrate themselves, sometimes dropping close to 20 percent of their weight in a matter of hours. Correspondent David Scott examines the serious health complications associated with weight-cutting, which has endangered fighters' lives, and at times, proven to be fatal, leaving some in the sport to question whether the age-old practice should be reined in.

When REAL SPORTS first profiled former NFL player Steve Gleason eight years ago, he was a man in decline, suffering from the fatal condition known as ALS, but still able to control some of his body. Today, he can do virtually nothing on his own, and being highly susceptible to the effects of COVID, he has spent weeks on end separated from his own family and the greater society. But Gleason refuses to surrender to the isolation of the pandemic and has found a way to widen his own world using technology - as well as inspire others. He has launched a remote interview program where he and his guests share their struggles and triumphs. To date, he's had conversations with leading figures of the day, from actor Hugh Jackman to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.