A consumer’s guide to the best and...

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.

What: “Two Leagues of Their Own?� segment on HBO’s “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel�

Air dates: Today, 11:30 a.m. and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 10:30 a.m.; Tuesday, 1:35 a.m.; Wednesday, 7 p.m., and Aug. 9, 1:30 p.m.

Bryant Gumbel introduces this feature on women’s professional basketball by talking about the over-hyping of the WNBA and how the sports’ other pro league, the American Basketball League, is under-hyped.

Thank goodness HBO provides some balance. Other television entities are either associated with the NBA or would like to be, so the ABL gets no play. It barely exists.

The ABL, which opened its first season late last year, vs. the WNBA, which launched in June, is a David-vs.-Goliath story, and in this case, Goliath is NBA Commissioner David Stern.

“I think what the ABL has basically done is set themselves up for defeat because you can’t compete against Goliath,� Pam McGee of the WNBA Sacramento Monarchs says in the HBO show, which first was televised Monday night.

Reporter James Brown gets caught up in the WNBA hype, calling the league’s first season “a smashing success.� But Gumbel, the voice of reason, afterward says to Brown, “I’ve got to pick a fight with you. You called the WNBA a success. Isn’t that a bit premature, when you take the padded attendance, the low ratings and the product itself?�

Brown says, “That could be read as an early reading, without a doubt. But all the proper ingredients [TV contracts, marketing and media campaigns, backers] are in place.�

As Brown says in the piece, “Everybody knows who’s got next; few know the ABL got first.� Thanks to HBO, more people do now.