Bob Costas speaks out on politics in sports activities

Discussions about sports activities and politics are once more on the rise. Sportscaster Bob Costas has lengthy been one of many sports activities media figures most prepared to debate off-the-field contexts to video games, together with political dimensions, and he did that once more within the newest episode of NBC’s Meet The Press, which can air at 11 a.m. ET Sunday.

Terrible Saying obtained an advance transcript of Costas’ dialog with Meet The Press host Kristen Welker. Their dialogue coated a variety of attention-grabbing topics, together with Costas’ ideas on his profession (he feels at this level “no matter I do ought to be in an emeritus function”) and a few of his most memorable calls, his sports activities historical past along with his father (who handed away when the youthful Costas was 18; they’d a sophisticated relationship round sports activities partly because of the elder Costas’ playing habits), and the state of sports activities and playing in the present day.

Nevertheless, possibly essentially the most notable dialog got here close to the top of the phase. Welker famous that that is Costas’ thirteenth Meet The Press look, after which requested for his ideas on sports activities as a unifier, saying “And it comes at a time when our nation may be very divided. I don’t should let you know that. Sports activities is unifying. Folks rally round their workforce, the video games that they love. What can sports activities educate us and educate this nation about unifying?”

Costas responded to that with a dialogue of how sports activities can unify, but in addition can “change into tribal,” particularly in mild of the tone in lots of sports activities conversations in the present day.

“Properly, the very best of sports activities, particularly workforce sports activities, is the concept folks from various backgrounds come collectively within the service of a typical trigger, that trigger being to do in addition to you probably can as a workforce,” he mentioned. “And also you have a look at the sector and also you have a look at the stadium and also you see folks with differing political viewpoints and from differing demographics however they’re all there rooting for his or her workforce. And in that second that’s unifying.

“Then again, a few of the tone now that surrounds sports activities, as we talked about earlier than, is indignant and accusatory. And it turns into tribal typically in a approach that isn’t actually all that wholesome in my thoughts.”

Welker adopted that up by saying “Politics is part of sports activities. Sports activities is part of politics. Does it concern you that we’re seeing, in some situations, politics infused in sports activities?” And Costas responded that that infusion is nothing new.

“I feel that politics inevitably has intersected with sports activities. Anybody who says that politics has no place in sports activities must be abysmally unaware of the historical past right here. As a result of till pretty just lately in our nation’s historical past sports activities and a few elements of leisure have been the one avenues that have been broadly – and even then there was a struggle, Jackie Robinson didn’t come till 1947– that have been broadly accessible to folks of coloration or the place somebody like Billie Jean King might make a bigger assertion about girls’s rights, not simply inside sports activities.

“And to show your again on that’s to put on a blindfold. So when folks say, “Stick with sports activities,” I feel what they really imply most frequently is, “Stick with sports activities until you’re saying one thing that I wish to hear and I agree with. However should you’re saying one thing I disagree with that comes from a unique perspective, effectively, then it is best to simply shut up and say, ‘There’s a floor ball to shortstop.’ I by no means bent to that.”

Costas certainly didn’t. His on-air work over time has typically included ideas on sports activities’ connections past the sphere, particularly in a number or essayist function on broadcasts together with the Olympics and Sunday Evening Soccer. And, as he famous to Welker elsewhere on this dialog, he’s continued to take stances even in newer years, together with refusing to learn playing promos in the course of the baseball video games he was calling for MLB Community and TNT Sports activities. He’s additionally not been shy about sharing his private views on political figures, together with criticizing U.S. president Donald Trump and former president Joe Biden.

However this explicit dialogue from Costas is probably particularly notable and impactful at this second in time, together with across the rising conversations about sports activities and politics. Costas is kind of proper to notice that the “keep on with sports activities” conversations are usually about athletes or commentators with views against the critic, and that those that share the views of that critic typically don’t get blasted by them. (Additionally, a few of these espousing “keep on with sports activities” typically do something however themselves.)

Much more considerably, Costas is right that there have been a ton of crossovers between sports activities and politics up to now. And he’s seen loads of these firsthand in his a long time of high-profile work. Costas’ (typically firsthand) data of sports activities historical past is one thing he actually convey to these emeritus commentator roles he mentioned with Welker earlier on this dialog, and, as we’ve seen earlier than, lots of feedback have extra of an affect when it’s him making them. There’s some worth to having him use his sports activities historical past data and perspective in high-profile spots, together with this Meet The Press interview.