REAL SPORTS With Bryant Gumbel Returns to HBO Tuesday, May 22

REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL, 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 254th edition debuts TUESDAY, MAY 22 (10:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO.

The show is also available on HBO NOW, HBO GO, HBO On Demand and partners' streaming platforms.

For up-to-the-minute updates about REAL SPORTS, follow on Twitter at @RealSportsHBO or join the conversation using #RealSports, and on HBO.com/realsports and facebook.com/realsports.

Segments include:

*Unsettling. Struck in 2013, the widely publicized NFL concussion settlement was hailed by many as the way to provide financial assistance to thousands of former players suffering life-changing ailments. But as REAL SPORTS discovers, only a fraction of claims have been paid to date, and many ex-athletes feel ignored as their health continues to deteriorate. Correspondent Jon Frankel meets former players who assert they have been wrongfully denied assistance and are fighting for restitution from the billion-dollar fund, and speaks with their lawyer, Chris Seeger.

Producer: Chapman Downes.

*The Puzzle Master. The New York Times crossword puzzle is a longtime staple of one of the world's most venerable publications, and crossword editor Will Shortz has been the brains behind it for 25 years. REAL SPORTS host Bryant Gumbel visits Shortz - the only person ever to earn a college degree in the study of puzzles - at his home, the unofficial Cooperstown for all things puzzles. He also meets some of the speediest crossword solvers in the world at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, which Shortz founded and has run for more than 40 years.

Producer: Tim Walker.

*Sidelined. Selected 16th in the 2012 NBA DRAFT by the Houston Rockets, six-foot eight-inch forward Royce White had a promising future, but his mental health struggles presented unfamiliar challenges to the league. White fought for changes in mental health policy during his short and tumultuous NBA career, but was out of the league by 2014. Five years after correspondent Bernard Goldberg first met White, they reconnect north of the border, where the 27-year-old recently became a scoring leader and MVP in the National Basketball League of Canada. Goldberg learns that White is continuing to speak out about mental health as he has once again found success on the basketball court.

Producers: Jake Rosenwasser, Nick Dolin.

On May 8, the 39th annual Sports Emmy® Awards honored REAL SPORTS for Outstanding Sports News Anthology, marking its fifth win in the category in a six-year period.

On Jan. 16, the duPont-Columbia University awards committee for excellence in broadcast journalism honored REAL SPORTS 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 marked 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.

The executive producers of REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL are Rick Bernstein and Joe Perskie.

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