In comments during the closing segment of his own program on HBO, Bryant Gumbel compared the Winter Olympics to a GOP convention for lacking black athletes.

On the program Real Sports, Gumbel said, "try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a paucity of Blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention."

Gumbel made the comments on the February 7 edition of the monthly program Real Sports. He also suggested the Winter Olympics are programming "filler" between the end of the NFL season and NCAA college basketball "March Madness." The comments were taken from the program itself.

Ray Stallone, VP Media Relations for HBO, released a statement about Gumbel's comment which said, "Bryant's closing remarks are his words and opinions. That's been the policy on the show for the past ten years. Nothing's changed."

But HBO Real Sports is a highly polished and video taped show. Rhodes News attempted to contact the show's producer, Kirby Bradley, to ask why the producers decided to leave Gumbel's offensive remarks in the final program. Mr. Bradley did not respond to our requests for interview.

Racially charged comments among major sports figures have sparked controversy in the past. Just more than a year ago Rush Limbaugh resigned his spot on ESPN's Sunday morning football pro football warmup after saying, "the media has been very desirous of a black quarterback to do well. The sports media, being liberals just like liberal media is elsewhere, have a desire that black quarterbacks excel and do very well so that their claims that blacks are being denied opportunity can be validated."

In 1987, the Dodgers general manager Al Campanis made on ABC's Nightline broadcast, in which he speculated the lack of blacks in baseball management was because, they "may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or, perhaps, a general manager." The Dodger general management fired Campanis for those remarks.

Gumbel's racially charged remarks caused on a firestorm of discussion on the affiliated message forum on the HBO Real Sports web site. The program's viewers have posted more than five pages of comments.

One viewer started the discussion by posting these comments: "I find it very offensive for Bryant Gumbel to call the Winter Olympics like a GOP Convention. Is it because mostly white people complete in the Winter Olympics? Is that why he doesn't like it and he can't wait for March Madness? Does this mean that the Summer Olympics are like a Democratic Convention?"

Another viewer offered this take on the comments: "I am shocked that Gumbel would disrespect these winter athletes by basically saying its a joke. I'm pretty sure it takes at least as much skill to run the down hill as it does to shoot a basketball. By the way, I don't think the ancient Greeks played basketball either."

Yet another viewer summed up the sentiment of many others with this: "Gee, what would the press response be if Frank Deford had said something like "Pro basketball is like watching an NAACP convention?" What hypocrisy, Gumbel gets a pass? We've seen commentators fired for less. Racism - a one way street."

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