Bob Costas

Bob Costas has been with NBC Sports since 1979, and has also hosted HBO sports and entertainment programs since 2001. Bob has covered every major sport, but is perhaps most identified with the Olympics and baseball. He anchored NBC’s primetime coverage of the last four Summer Olympics-Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, Sydney, Australia in the year 2000, and Athens, Greece 2004. He also hosted the 2002 winter games in Salt Lake City. Bob’s first Olympic experience came in Seoul, Korea in 1988, where he served as the late-night host.

From 1983 through 1989, bob teamed with Tony Kubek on NBC’s baseball “game of the week” telecasts. He hosted the network’s “NFL Live” pre-game show for nine years (1984-1992), stepping aside following super bowl xxvii. Costas has been involved in the coverage of six league championship series and five World Series for NBC sports. He has hosted six super bowls.

In the past few years, Costas returned to baseball, handling play-by-play for NBC’s all star, playoff and World Series telecasts. He teamed with Joe Morgan for these games. Costas’ reputation within baseball is long standing, dating to his “game of the week” partnership with Tony Kubek. His frequent and passionate commentary about the game’s history, appeal, and ongoing problems, has earned him the respect and admiration of milli0ns of fans. His book, “fair ball, a fan’s case for baseball”, earned excellent reviews, remained on the New York Times best seller list for several weeks, and influenced the ongoing discussion concerning the game’s direction.

Bob was the play-by-play voice of the NBA on NBC from 1997 through the 1999-2000 season. For many years prior he had been the host of NBC’s NBA coverage. He was also a contributing interviewer and essayist on NBC’s NFL pre-game show, the program he previously hosted for nine years.

In February 2001, HBO launched “On the Record with Bob Costas”. The critically praised and Emmy award-winning show is one of two Bob hosts for HBO. The other, the long-running “Inside the NFL” welcomed bob in 2002. On “INFL” he teams with Dan Marino, Cris Collinsworth, and Cris Carter, to form a lively and popular team.

Costas has won sixteen Emmy Awards-thirteen for outstanding sports host or play-by-play (including the Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney and Salt Lake City Olympics), two for writing, and one for his late night interview show, “Later with Bob Costas”. Uniquely, bob has been nominated for Emmys in five different categories: play-by-play, hosting, writing, interviewing (for “Later with Bob Costas”),and journalism.

Bob has been named “national sportscaster of the year” an unprecedented eight times by his peers in 1985, 1987, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1997, and 2000. When he first won the NSSA award in 1985, he was thirty-three years old, the youngest announcer to be so honored. In 1988 bob began to diversify beyond sports broadcasting. He served as a substitute host for Bryant Gumbel on NBC’s “Today Show”, then went on to host his own late night program, “later with bob costas”. This emmy award-winning show featured in-depth interviews exploring the lives of newsmakers, entertainers and personalities from varied backgrounds. After a 5-1/2 year run, bob left “later” in February 1994. He still contributes occasional interviews and commentary to NBC’s “today show” and “nightly news” program.

At age twenty-two, Bob landed a job at KMOX radio in St. Louis, Missouri, one of America’s most prominent radio stations. He broadcast a wide variety of live play-by-play and studio programs from 1974 through 1981. One of his primary assignments during this time was announcing the play-by-play for the ABA’s spirits of St. Louis team. He did regional NFL and NBA telecasts for CBS (1976-1979) and was the radio voice of the university of Missouri basketball games (1976-1981) as well as the NBA Chicago bulls (1980).

Bob Costas is a native of Queens, New York and grew up on long island. He attended Syracuse University in New York, where he majored in journalism. He began his professional career at WSYR-TV and radio in 1973 while studying at Syracuse.