Biography

Bob Costas

by Simond Cannon,

Bob Costas is a well-known name in the hosting business as he has been continuously been hosting and presenting as a sportscaster since the early 1980s. He is a controversial personality liked by millions of viewers all around the world. He has hosted nine Olympic Games and is the host for NBC Sports and also hosts the interview show Studio 42 with Bob Costas.

Early Life, Bio, And Education Of Bob Costas

Bob was born on March 22, 1952, in the borough of Queens in New York to Jayne and John George Costas. Bob is of Irish and Greek descent and he grew up in Commack, New York. He graduated from Commack High School South and then majored in communications from Syracuse University. He belongs to American nationality and regarding her ethnicity, he is White. 

While attending Syracuse University he served as an announcer for the Syracuse Blazers hockey team for the Eastern Hockey League and North American Hockey League thus starting his broadcasting career.

He next went to KMOX and started calling play-by-play for the American Basketball Association‘s Spirits of St. Louis. He also co-hosted KMOX’s Open Line call-in program and called for the Missouri Tigers basketball.

From 1976 to 1979 he was employed by CBS Sports as an announcer for NFL and NBA. He also did play-by-play for the broadcast of Chicago Bulls on WGN-TV.   

Bob Costas' Career And Wiki

Costas then moved to NBC and hosted NBC’s National Football League and NBA coverage for a number of years. He teamed up with various other personalities to do telecasts for NBA and baseball. He also did play-by-play for the NFL games and then became the studio host for The NFL on NBC.

As of 2001, he started co-hosting for Kentucky Derby and also hosted the US Open golf tournament. He also covered the 2009 Kentucky Oaks and became the host of the interview show Costas Tonight with the introduction of the NBC Sports Network.

Costas has covered various Olympic broadcasts including the Olympics in Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, Salt Lake City, Athens, Turin, Beijing, Vancouver, London, and most recently Sochi in 2014 for NBC.

Costas commented on the extensive use of drugs by Chinese teams during the 1992 Barcelona Olympics which created a huge media uproar and criticism towards him. However, with the suspension of a Chinese swimming coach in 1994 after his swimmers were found to be using steroids, the media uproar died out.

Further inquiries and findings of extensive use of steroids, somatropin, and triamterene by the Chinese players, his suspicions were found to be true and his negated image gained back the popularity he always had.

Costas has always been surrounded with controversies, among which falls his commentary of the 2012 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies where he was criticized for making jingoistic, ignorant, and banal commentary.

His only miss out on covering the Olympics since 1988 was at the start of the 2014 Winter Olympics where he suffered an eye infection, thus being replaced by Matt Lauer for four nights and Meredith Vieira for two nights.

Bob Costas has also broadcasted Major League Baseball, the most memorable one being the broadcast which occurred on June 23, 1984. A controversy arose during Game 4 of the 1988 Baseball World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics whereby he commented before the starting of the game that the Dodgers will be putting up the weakest-hitting-lineup in the history of the World Series. This comment led to wide criticism and sarcasm on his way as the Dodgers actually won by 4-1.

Costas also called the 1989 American League Championship Series and also the Game 2 of the 1989 National League Championship Series for NBC. He also anchored pre and post-game shows for NFL as well as Major League Baseball All-Star Games during the 1980s. He got to do play-by-play for a World Series from start to finish only in 1997 thus earning himself a Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Sports Personality, Play-by-Play. He also hosted the night telecasts for ESPN in 1999.

As for the National Basketball Association, Costas hosted the telecasts and also the studio program Showtime including the play-by-play for the 1991 All-Star Game. Since 1997 Costas began to do play-by-play for The NBA on NBC which was interrupted on the 2000 NBA Finals. His hosting period for The NBA on NBC ended in the 2002 NBA Playoffs.

Bob hosted the NFL (National Football League) telecasts for NBC until 1992 and then resumed doing so in 2006. As of the NHL (National Hockey League), Costas has hosted NBC’s coverage of 2008, 2009, 2010 NHL Winter Cla s sics, the pre-game coverage of the 2011 event, and the post-game coverage of 2012 as well.

Costas has hosted the talk shows like Costas Coast to Coast (1986-1996), a radio program, Later with Bob Costas (1988-1994) on NBC, a substitute for Larry King Life for a year, a correspondent for Rock Center with Brian Williams and currently is the host of the talk show Costas Tonight which is telecasted on NBC Sports Network. His show Later with Bob Costas has been nominated twice and has won the Emmy once for best informational series in 1993.

As for HBO Sports, Costas has hosted a 12-week series, On the Record with Bob Costas, and co-hosted Inside the NFL until the end of the 2007 NFL season. He then joined the MLB Network in February 2009 and hosted the premiere episode of the All-Time Games and now hosts an interview show title MLB Network Studio 42 with Bob Costas.

He has also appeared in the miniseries Baseball and the film A Time for Champions of the PBS. His other appearances include him starring in Late Night with David Letterman, The War to Settle the Score on MTV, Cheers, on the television program NewsRadio, and a guest on the talk show cartoon Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

Other endeavors include acting as himself in the movies The Scout, BASEketball, Pootie Tang, and lending his voice in the movie Cars. He has also appeared in the television series Monk and has voiced an episode of the Simpsons and the film Legendary: When Baseball came to the Bluegra s s.

Apart from this, he has appeared as himself on the Go On an episode in 2013 and also provided the voice of God in the Monty Python musical Spamalot.

It was announced on Jan 15, 2019, that Bob officially left NBC Sports after a decades-long career. 

Bob Costas'  Net Worth And Salary

Bob Costas's net worth is $45 million at present. He earns an annual salary of $7 million from his successful career.  He has received nearly 20 Emmy Awards and four "National Sportscaster of the Year" awards.

Bob Costas and his wife Jill Sutton also purchased a $4.7 million home in Newport Beach, California. His 4,534-square-foot mansion has a total of four bedrooms and six bathrooms, along with a guest house and some “bonus” rooms. 

Over the years, he proved to be equally comfortable with performers, filmmakers, artists, writers, and political figures, making his visibility and credibility so substantial that he was even put forth as a possible candidate for the commissioner of Major League Baseball.

Bob Costas' Wife, Son, Affair, And Relationship

Bob Costas was married from 1983 to 2001 to Carole Randall Krummenacher with two children, Keith and Taylor. Keith is the holder of two Sports Emmys as an a s sociate producer on MLB Networks MLB Tonight and Taylor too has won as an a s sociate producer on 2012 Summer Olympics covered by NBC.

Costas married Jill Sutton on March 12, 2004, and they have been together since then. No rumors of him having any kind of affairs have arisen and the couple lives happily together in New York.

This legendary sportscaster at the age of 62 is an avid lover of baseball. He has won eight National Sportscaster of the Year awards, four Sportscaster of the Year Award from the American Sportscaster Association, twenty Sports Emmy Awards for outstanding sports announcing, Curt Gowdy Media Award, TV Guide Award for Favorite Sportscaster, Dick Schaap Award for Outstanding Journalism, and Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism among many others.

Bob Costas has been serving the entertainment business for over three decades and still continues to awe the audience with his tenacity and charm. He is a respected personality who at times is surrounded by controversies regarding his comments on some issues, but his fan following is never the less huge.

His official fan pages can be found on Facebook and Twitter and his detailed biography is found on his wiki page. Costas has certainly honed his reporting and presenting skills to his best over the many years and will still continue to dazzle his audience for a long time to come.

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Bob Costas' Age and Height

  • Bob Costas' age as of 2019 is 67 years. 
  • Height: he stands at 1.7 m (5ft 5 inch).