Gumbel mum after latest big splash

Bryant Gumbel Wednesday declined comment on his latest big splash -- calling NBA Commissioner David Stern a "modern plantation overseer" -- as HBO spokesman Ray Stallone says Gumbel "feels there isn't anything to elaborate on."

But whether by design or luck, Bryant Gumbel seems like a genius -- at getting attention.

Consider that he's not exactly working with a huge on-air platform. HBO's Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel only appears monthly on a channel reaching about 28 million of the USA 115 million TV households. And while HBO does relentlessly replays the show, Gumbel gets relatively little airtime as the host of a program built on features.

This isn't the first time that Gumbel, brother of CBS announcer Greg Gumbel, has managed to generate huge buzz, with his comments on Stern being just the most recent example. Some of his other HBO blasts:

-- The U.S. Golf Association made "a mockery" of this U.S. Open and "sold out" by supposedly making the course too easy" in hopes that lots of birdies would help boost TV ratings in an event where Tiger Woods wasn't playing.

--Soccer's World Cup is enjoyable to watch even though "in soccer they score about as often as Ann Coulter makes sense."

-- Before making his first play-by-play calls as an NFL Network game announcer, a short-lived experiment, he suggested NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell remind owners that they're "making obscene amounts of money" and to "make sure no one competent ever replaces" Gene Upshaw, now deceased, as head of the players' union.

-- On the Winter Olympics: "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 the GOP convention."