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What: “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel”

Where: HBO, tonight, 10-11

The lead story in this edition of HBO’s sports journalism program is about Daniel Snyder, the 35-year-old owner of the Washington Redskins. He paid a record $800 for the Washington Redskins in 1999 and has since doled out $40 million in signing bonuses to get the likes of Bruce Smith and Deion Sanders.

Reporter Armen Keteyian doesn’t pull any punches, putting Snyder on the spot with some difficult questions right off the bat. Keteyian tells Snyder he has the reputation of being a bad guy, using a word one could only use on HBO. Snyder says, “It’s easy to root against a young and aggressive person who has been successful.”

Some 70 Redskin employees have been fired or quit since Snyder took over, but Snyder gives Coach Norv Turner a vote of confidence. “I would love to win the Super Bowl,” he says. “It would be wonderful if we could do it this year. If we don’t and we get real close and we have a tragedy, well, you know, we’re gonna go on. Norv will be here for a long time.”

Keteyian: “A tragedy?”

Snyder: “Well, it’s a tragedy not winning, isn’t it?”

The second story examines the trouble Sammy Sosa’s foundation has had to deal with, as well as other foundations that carry the names of famous athletes. There is also a profile of Bela Karolyi and the fourth story is about Cuban high jumper Javier Sotomayor, who had his two-year ban from track and field reduced to one year by the International Amateur Athletic Federation in August. Sotomayor tested positive for cocaine in July 1999, and IAAF official Arne Ljungvist, vehemently opposed to the reduced ban, says Sotomayor has tested positive since.