Bob Costas isn\u2019t coming back to NBC to take anyone\u2019s chair.<\/p>\n
NBC Sports revealed last week<\/a> that the 73-year-old Costas will return as the pregame host for Sunday Night Baseball, debuting March 26 with Opening Day coverage<\/a> as the Los Angeles Dodgers raise their World Series banner against the Arizona Diamondbacks.<\/p>\n Yes, he\u2019s back. Yes, he\u2019ll be prominent. And no, he will not be anywhere near the studio.<\/p>\n That was a point Costas wanted to clear up after noticing some outlets suggest his role would overlap with NBC\u2019s studio analysts \u2014 including Clayton Kershaw<\/a>, Joey Votto,<\/a> and Anthony Rizzo<\/a> \u2014 in Stamford, Connecticut. While he could still host a pregame alongside that group, Costas made clear that the plan is for him to never set foot in the studio unless he\u2019s recording a voiceover.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a studio host for baseball,\u201d Costas clarified during a recent appearance on the Sports Media Watch Podcast<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ll never set foot in a studio unless it\u2019s to record a voiceover. I will be at the site of every game I host. It will only be the Sunday night games.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, NBC has carved out something far more specific \u2014 and far more Costas.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat will become clear, not just to people who follow it closely\u2026but to the average person of the viewing audience,\u201d Costas added, \u201cit\u2019ll be clear that this is a carefully, and I hope, thoughtfully and intelligently crafted, emeritus role that will not usurp anyone else\u2019s role and will not involve anything that I\u2019ll do that people would say, \u2018Well, there\u2019s 10 other people who could or would do that.\u201d<\/p>\n But the bigger picture is the reunion itself. Nearly seven years after quietly departing NBC, Costas is returning to the network \u2014 and the sport he\u2019s most closely associated with \u2014 in a role tailored to what he still does best. During a subsequent conference call, Costas said the agreement is for at least the \u201cfirst year,\u201d with flexibility beyond that<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cBeyond that, we\u2019ll see what happens,\u201d Costas said. \u201cBut I think I\u2019ll be a contributor. As long as I\u2019m upright and haven\u2019t lost my fastball completely, I\u2019ll be a contributor as long as I have something to contribute.\u201d<\/p>\n Costas stepped away from play-by-play after calling the 2024 ALDS for TBS<\/a>, believing the performance didn\u2019t meet his own standards<\/a>. What hasn\u2019t slipped, however, is his effectiveness as a host and commentator. That instrument remains sharp. Which is why NBC made sure to distinguish his role from the network\u2019s routine studio operation, whether that\u2019s Ahmed Fareed, Connor Rogers, or anyone else manning the desk.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I won\u2019t be the traffic cop, primarily,\u201d he said. \u201cWill it be some of that? There has to be. There has to be some over to you and over to you type thing. But there\u2019s a carve out for me to do things where my contribution will make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n Could that mean a postgame appearance? Or stepping in on the news or sports side if a moment calls for perspective? Probably, considering NBC often deployed Costas when the moment required not just a broadcaster, but a historian, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bob Costas isn\u2019t coming back to NBC to take anyone\u2019s chair. NBC Sports revealed last week that the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,9099,33941,72638,13133],"class_list":{"0":"post-551478","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-bob-costas","10":"tag-mlb-on-nbc","11":"tag-sports-media-watch-podcast","12":"tag-sunday-night-baseball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116004386794957118","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}