Bob Costas

Named “National Sportscaster of the Year” an unprecedented eight times, Bob Costas has been a prominent player in the coverage of every major sport and 12 Olympic Games over the past four decades. His thoughtful commentary on a variety of issues, including traumatic brain injuries in football, has made him a distinctive voice of his generation.

Bob Costas holds 28 Emmy Awards—the most of any sports broadcaster—and is the only person to have won in each of three categories: sports, entertainment, and news. In addition to 26 sports reporting awards, Costas won an Emmy for his talk show Later with Bob Costas (1988–1994), and another for his 2011 post-scandal interview with Jerry Sandusky.

A native New Yorker, Costas began his career by announcing games for a local TV and radio station while studying communications at Syracuse University. Before completing a degree, he left Syracuse for a local sportscasting role in St. Louis and a three-year stint at CBS before joining NBC in 1980.

Costas became a major figure in sports broadcasts over his 40 years at the network. During his tenure, he regularly called baseball games—his well-documented favorite sport—for Game of the Week, and covered a total of 12 Olympic Games, seven Super Bowls, seven World Series tournaments, ten NBA Finals, 18 runnings of the Kentucky Derby, and 12 U.S. Open golf tournaments.

Costas also has become known over his career as one of the best interviewers in sports. In addition to his award-winning work on NBC’s Later, he was the host of HBO’s On The Record interview show, and the popular, nationally-syndicated sports radio talk shows Costas Coast to Coast (1986–1996) and Costas on the Radio (2006–2009).

Following the 2016 NFL season, Costas announced that he would stop hosting NBC’s Sunday Night Football, and would conclude his quarter-century run as host of the network’s Olympics coverage. He officially left NBC in January 2019.

He has since joined the Major League Baseball Network, contributing interviews, commentary, and play-by-play as the host of Studio 42 with Bob Costas and in regular appearances on MLB Tonight and the network’s special event coverage.

Costas received the 2018 Ford C. Frick Award for major contributions to baseball at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, awarded by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

He is also the New York Times bestselling author of Fair Ball: A Fan’s Case for Baseball (2000). Proceeds from the book were donated to Baseball Assistance Team (B.A.T.), a charity that provides financial assistance to those in need in the baseball family.

Costas lives in New York City with his wife, Jill Sutton.