HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” returns for its 25th season tonight with a remotely produced episode focused on the impact of COVID-19 on sports at large. The episode, the show’s 276th overall, is highlighted by a virtual roundtable discussion among noted play-by-play announcers Jim Nantz, Mike Breen and Joe Buck, all calling in from their respective homes. HBO VP/Sports Production Joe Perskie, an exec producer on the show since '99, said that the production team had to “reinvent the way we do everything” to pull off the episode amid the pandemic. Perskie: “We had to do our interviews via webcam, which meant that our correspondents had to learn how to film themselves with camera equipment -- with the lighting -- how to record files and send them here and there. Lot of boring technical stuff, but it’s the meat and potatoes of what needs to be done behind the scenes. Every single little thing that you never even think of and you take for granted after all these years suddenly becomes a major issue.”
MAKING THE MOST OF IT: While Perskie admitted producing the show remotely was a “challenge,” staffers also sensed an opportunity to rise to the occasion. “Everyone was probably a little bit energized. After 25 years, it can be good to get a challenge. No one wanted it to come this way, but to get a curve ball and try to hit it -- that can get your juices flowing.” Perskie said a hallmark of “Real Sports” over its run has been “staying true to our formula.” Perskie: “But every so often, we’ve branched out and we’ve tried to take the core of what we do, the DNA of what we do, and push it a little bit beyond. … I think we’re doing that right now.”
HELLO, FRIENDS: Gumbel approached Perskie with the idea of a Nantz-Breen-Buck episode to provide a sense of normalcy for viewers. Perskie: “These are the three voices we’re used to hearing narrate the world of sports, and they’ve effectively been silenced. They’ll shed a lot of light on where they see sports going, and what their experiences have been like.”
WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS: Perskie called the 25-year mark a “real achievement” for “Real Sports,” and he is cautiously optimistic about the show’s ability to deliver for fans amid the current situation. “It’s my job to look forward and think of where’s the show going? How do we keep a show that’s 25 years old fresh and also stay true to what we are? In this environment, I’ve been asking myself, ‘What’s 'Real Sports' in a world that almost doesn’t have sports? Is the sports industry coming back the way we knew it? Is there an opportunity to do more interesting things now because the industry is in such a state of flux?' … Hopefully, we can keep going. We’re all proud of what we built, and we certainly want to be adaptable. After 25 years, you need to be.”
