NBC Sports is about to become a lot more watchable. According to The Washington Post, the network is in talks to to terminate Bob Costas’s contract:
Costas, 66, joined NBC Sports in 1979 and has long been a reassuring presence during the Olympics, Super Bowls, World Series and other national events. That role has changed in recent years with the arrival of Mike Tirico from ESPN, and with Costas’s increasing interest in providing context and opinion on matters of the moment, such as the NFL’s concussion problem and gun violence in America.
NBC seems to have caught on: people don’t tune in to a football game to receive political lectures. In fact, according to a McLaughlin & Associates/Media Research Center national poll of 1,000 likely voters conducted last March, politics is repelling potential viewers.
But Costas loves the sound of his own voice -- especially when it’s saying something super important. So he’s going to have to find somewhere else to furrow his botox and put on his serious journalist face. Someplace that would allow him to “‘pursue a journalism show that includes news-making interviews and commentaries’ and may extend beyond sports,” as the Post suggests.
So you may want to give NBC sports another try. Bob Costas won’t be around to excuse the kneeling players and moan that is that “sports and patriotism and the flag have been conflated to such an extent that people can't separate out any nuance.” He won’t be scolding the Redskins about their team name, or talking down to Americans about their “gun culture,” or the “backlash” when the media tried to force a “gay Jackie Robinson” of the NFL. Hell, Insufferable Bob won’t even be there to sniff at all that’s wrong with the game you’re trying to watch.
