Longtime broadcaster Bob Costas is calling his first full playoff series since 2000 this year, as TBS handed him play-by-play duties on the ALDS between the Cleveland Guardians and New York Yankees. Costas is certainly a bit old-fashioned and has drawn mixed reviews, but he has one pretty funny take that a lot of viewers might be on board with.
Costas was somewhat involved in one viral moment during Game 1, when he had to introduce a staged promo for HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” the network’s “Game of Thrones” prequel. As part of the promo, reporter Lauren Shehadi had to do a “report” on a CGI dragon flying over Yankee Stadium.
Costas already seemed a little baffled by the promo on the air, as he joked that the promo may be “frightening some gullible people.” On Thursday, in an appearance on 850 ESPN Cleveland’s “The Really Big Show,” Costas went even further, voluntarily bringing up the ad when asked about how broadcasting has changed over the years.
“Here’s what’s changed just from a production standpoint — there’s a lot more stuff,” Costas said, via Ryan Glasspiegel of the New York Post. “The commercial imperatives are such that there’s more drop-ins during games including a dragon swooping into Yankee Stadium in simulated form in Game 1. And I didn’t even know what it was. They hand me this card and I’m like ‘What the hell is this?’
“I read it in as detached a form as I could, and then I see it with poor Lauren Shehadi, who is just a wonderful person who does a great job on the MLB Network and for TBS. And she’s gotta do this thing — some simulated report. Now I gotta think how do I distance myself from this without totally trashing it? So I said something which I hope that reasonable people understood was kinda like me rolling my eyes at the whole thing.”
Tell us how you really feel, Bob.
Costas could certainly sound a bit grumpy here, but the ad was pretty ridiculous and over-the-top. Such things are becoming par for the course for a lot of sports broadcasts these days, though, so Costas might just have to get used to it. We wouldn’t mind if he keeps throwing shade at the ad reads, though.
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