Big news wafting from the global headquarters of Comcast’s NBC Universal today as a smarmed-up Bob Costas announced that he would be ceding his prime time Olympics hosting chair to Mike Tirico:

Saw this coming a mile away. If you’re Tirico, you don’t just leave a plush gig at ESPN doing Monday Night Football to be the part-time SNF and mid-day Olympics guy.*

I’ve always wanted to like Costas. His straightforward sports broadcasting and hosting is as good as it gets, but his insistence on injecting self-serving prose and commentary into everything he touches is nauseating. Building blocks don’t come more square than Costas. If there was any doubt remaining, the XFL 30 for 30 sealed the deal when it harked back to Costas’ holier-than-thou interview with Vince McMahon:

This is supposedly Bob’s decision – sure, we’ll go with that – but it’s awfully convenient that NBC brought Tirico over less than a year before Costas suddenly decided to step down. I imagine the final straw for Costas, the botox-stuffed fossil, came during one segment in Rio where he brought on the equally lame Mary Carillo and geeked out about her search for the actual girl from Ipanema, or when he weirded the balls off the Final Five or whatever they called themselves. Take your pick! Costas has developed a unique ability to make everything awkward, which is not a trait you want as you try to reach #millennials.

Anyway, Tirico is awesome and will inject some much needed life into NBC’s prime time coverage, presumably without talking down to both viewers and guests alike.


*Unless you’re Josh Elliott, who left his GMA hosting gig to do, um, something(?) at NBC Sports and then bailed for the relative abyss of CBS News. Good job!

UPDATE: Costas is also off SNF hosting duties and is taking a much-diminished role at NBC, similar to that of Tom Brokaw, fan of the grrrrrrrrreatest generation! From the New York Times:

Mr. Costas is not only leaving as NBC’s prime-time host, he is also reducing his overall workload at the network. He will no longer host “Football Night in America,” the pregame show that airs before the network’s “Sunday Night Football” broadcasts. He will host the Triple Crown horse races this year but in the future, he will be only at the Kentucky Derby unless a horse is vying for the Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes. In that case, he would host the Belmont race. He will host next year’s Super Bowl coverage while Mr. Tirico is in Korea.

Mr. Costas will take on a role at the network similar to Tom Brokaw’s, offering commentary and features at major events, like the Olympics or the Super Bowl, or appearing on NBC programming when news breaks, as he did when Muhammad Ali died last year. The network regularly calls on Mr. Brokaw, the former NBC “Nightly News” anchor, to comment on major events like presidential elections.

Scaling back his NBC schedule will give Mr. Costas more time to indulge his love of baseball at MLB Network, where he calls games, narrates documentaries and hosts round-table shows.

Sure.