Sports Colleagues Tell Bob Costas: Shut Up And Stick To Sports

"We're doing the game; it's really not under our jurisdiction to be weighing in"

8.26.2014
News
Jeff Dunetz
  

Sports fans have criticized Bob Costas for promoting his liberal political views by interjecting sermons into sportscasts. Recently some of his fellow sportscasters have also criticized Costas for opining about political issues instead of talking about the game.  On Monday, Al Michaels and some of his broadcast partners told The Hollywood Reporter, "Our audience wants to watch a football game, and all you really do to fans when they're watching the game, if you go in that direction, is piss 'em off. They don't want to be lectured to -- period."

The next day Michaels' sentiments were echoed by college football sportscaster Kirk Herbstreit. Interviewed on Tuesday morning's "Fox and Friends," Herbstreit agreed with Al Michaels:

I work on two shows, "College Game Day", and on the morning studio show like you guys do, I'll talk about that. But when I’m calling a game, the way Michaels would do and the way I would do on Saturday night, I’m going to talk about the game. I'm going to break down and analyze the game, the subject matter involving that night and that broadcast. I don't think that's the platform to do that. I agree with Al.

The Hollywood Reporter interviewed the "Sunday Night Football" broadcast team (including Mark Lazarus, Al Michaels, and coordinating producer Fred Gaudelli) about the upcoming NFL season. One of the topics covered was how they will handle the controversy over the name Washington Redskins. The answer was that the subject didn't belong as part of the ongoing play by play:

Interviewer: How do you plan to handle the Washington Redskins nickname controversy on the air?

Gaudelli Just like we handled it last year. No one's tuning in to the game to hear our opinion on should the name be changed or should the name be left the way it is. We're doing the game; it's really not under our jurisdiction to be weighing in. If we were a studio show, it would be different.

Lazarus: [Costas] did that, so we don't need to address it again. It was only relevant for Bob to do it in that game [Oct. 13, 2013] because that was the first game after the controversy bubbled up again, and it was a Redskins game.

Michaels: You should have seen Twitter on Bob that night, but that's a whole other story. Our audience wants to watch a football game, and all you really do to fans when they're watching the game, if you go in that direction, is piss 'em off. They don't want to be lectured to -- period.

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