HOT CORNER

A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here. One exception: No products will be endorsed.

What: “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel.”

Where: HBO, tonight, 10.

Erin Brockovich, the legal assistant made famous by the film starring Julia Roberts, is featured in the lead segment on the latest edition of “Real Sports.” Brockovich is spearheading a lawsuit about the alleged contamination of a high school athletic field.

In the movie, a true story, Brockovich went after PG&E;, contending that the corporation contaminated the water in the desert town of Hinkley, Calif. Brockovich’s efforts led to a $333-million settlement.

Brockovich worked for lawyer Ed Masry then as a researcher and still does. In June, Brockovich and Masry & Vititoe filed a suit on behalf of a group of students, mostly athletes, who attended the high school in question between 1977 and 1997.

The suit alleges that toxic fumes from oil wells on the school’s campus made the athletic fields unsafe and sickened about 300 students with Hodgkin’s disease and other cancers.

This high school is not in a remote area. It is Beverly Hills High.

There is a flower-painted tower on campus that is actually an oil derrick, although it has not been in operation since May. Other oil wells are underneath the school and athletic field.

“Real Sports” examines the lawsuit filed against more than two dozen oil and gas companies, the school district and the city. Correspondent Derek McGinty and producer Ethan Nelson present a balanced report, although district officials declined to be interviewed. Brockovich is interviewed at length and three alleged victims tell their stories. A representative of the oil company that has run the wells since 1995 helps present the other side.

In introducing the segment, host Bryant Gumbel notes, “Some say Brockovich’s claims are frighteningly accurate, while others think it’s all just Hollywood flim-flam.”

Other segments include an update on Italian race car driver Alex Zanardi, who lost both legs in an accident in 2001; a revealing look at a noted British streaker, and a profile of soccer’s David Beckham.