{"id":431448,"date":"2026-01-23T04:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T04:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/431448\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T04:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T04:27:11","slug":"bob-costas-returning-for-prominent-mlb-role-on-nbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/431448\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Costas returning for prominent MLB role on NBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bob Costas is headed back to his former home.<\/p>\n

Costas, who previously announced games on NBC for nearly four decades, will be back at the network to be a part of their new MLB Sunday night package, the longtime commentator confirmed Thursday.<\/p>\n

NBC announced that Costas will host the \u201cSunday Night Baseball\u201d pregame show and continue as an NBA contributor for the network.<\/p>\n

Costas also will be anchoring NBC coverage of the Dodgers\u2019 season opener against the Diamondbacks on March 26.<\/p>\n

\"BobBob Costas Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to make \u2018Sunday Night Baseball\u2019 feel big. There\u2019s no bigger name associated with baseball than Bob and also great to have him back in the NBC fold,\u201d NBC Sports President Rick Cordella said to The Associated Press. \u201cBob was the face of NBC Sports and maybe the network for a period of time. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo bring him back as he sort of winds down his career is the right thing to do. And when we got baseball back it made a lot of sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Costas departed from NBC in 2019 after a 39-year run with the network, where the legendary announcer hosted 12 Olympics, seven Super Bowls, and covered 10 NBA Finals and seven World Series.<\/p>\n

As NBC\u2019s MLB coverage ended after the 2000 season, Costas later opted for coverage at MLB Network \u2014 where he had been a voice since its inception in 2009 \u2014 as baseball has been his preferred sport to announce.<\/p>\n

Costas also has called games for TBS, but did announce that he would be retiring from play-by-play following the 2024 American League Division Series between the Yankees and Royals.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs appreciative as I am of other aspects of my career, especially HBO and the\u00a0MLB\u00a0Network, for 40 years, my true broadcasting home was NBC,\u201d Costas said in a statement on Thursday, according to the Associated Press<\/a>. \u201cSo many great moments, memories, and friendships.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I am very grateful to Rick Cordella and Sam Flood for inviting me back in an emeritus role to conclude my career where so much of it played out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Costas recently had some suggestions for the MLB players and owners and their upcoming labor negotiations.<\/p>\n

During an appearance on Christopher \u201cMad Dog\u201d Russo\u2019s SiriusXM radio show earlier this week, Costas said the league should decrease the number of regular season games played to 156, down from 162.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey should be able to cut back to at least 156,\u201d Costas said. \u201cWhich is one three-game home series for each team.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 162-game format has been the standard for the MLB since the early 1960s \u2014 the American League introduced it in 1961, with the National League adopting the same schedule the following season.<\/p>\n

To make up for the lost regular season games, Costas called for an expanded playoff format.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe division series should be best of 7,\u201d Costas added. \u201cThe [league championship series] is best of 7, the World Series is best of 7. But the division series is the only one that\u2019s guaranteed to include a wild card and the third-best division winner, which is sometimes a relatively weak team. Why would you want that one to be more subject to a flukey result than the others?<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to do that \u2014 so that you don\u2019t spill in deeper to November \u2014 you\u2019re gonna have to cut back on the number of regular season games, but you could make some of that up with additional television revenue, because television likes inventory.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bob Costas is headed back to his former home. Costas, who previously announced games on NBC for nearly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,120180,591,6333,70389,85,9274,5999],"class_list":["post-431448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bob-costas","tag-mlb","tag-nbc","tag-nbc-sports","tag-sports","tag-sports-entertainment","tag-sports-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}