CNN viewers have become accustomed to seeing legendary sportscaster Bob Costas across the network’s programming over the past year, providing his insights on intersection of sports and news.
Costas, who joined CNN as a contributor in July 2020 (and also hosts a sports series on HBO), is now taking his talents to fellow WarnerMedia property Turner Sports, and will serve as studio host for pre-game and post-game coverage of this year’s National League Championship Series on TBS, beginning Oct. 15.
The possibility of Costas joining TBS for its MLB playoffs coverage was reported by the New York Post back in August.
This marks the first time Costas will suit up for Turner Sports after a long, illustrious career at NBC Sports.
“It’s my job to kind of move everything along, be the traffic cop asking a few good questions,” Costas recently told Variety.
Costas has been covering Major League Baseball for decades, first at NBC and now as a play-by-play man for MLB Network.
Costas will be joined by Pedro Martinez, Jimmy Rollins and Curtis Granderson in the Atlanta studio. “It’s easier to host than it is to do play by play,” Costas told Variety. “There’s much less pressure involved.”
Ernie Johnson, the longtime face of Turner Sports, hosted the studio coverage of TBS’ National League Wild Card broadcast on Wednesday night, and will host the network’s National League Divisional Series pre and postgame coverage. However, after the NLDS is complete, he will step away and focus his time on Inside the NBA, Turner’s award-sporting studio show.
Costas and WarnerMedia News & Sports chairman Jeff Zucker are quite close. Their connection goes back decades to when both were key figures of NBC’s Olympics coverage in the 1990s.
In fact, Zucker, the NBC Newser-turned-CNN boss was Costas’ researcher for NBC’s coverage of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Zucker feted Costas at the 2019 Syracuse Mirror Awards, saying “I was 23 years old and working with Bob was my first real job in television. … We have remained colleagues and friends for over 30 years and I’ve never met someone more talented.”