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Legendary broadcaster Bob Costas, veteran host of a dozen Olympic Games, is busy with Back On the Record, an HBO talk show on which he tackles the most compelling issues of the day with guests from the worlds of sports, culture and entertainment. On that series, now back for a second season, Costas, 69, a 29-time Emmy winner, asks the questions. Here, he answers a few.
The Beijing Olympics are front and center. Any regrets you aren’t there?
No. I did a dozen Olympics. It was time for me to transition into something else. I’m not retired but neither am I carrying anything like the workload I once did. HBO makes a lot of sense for me. The type of programming that they do, I’m well suited to it.
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Of the dozen you covered, do you have a favorite Olympics?
I’ll always have a soft spot for Barcelona in 1992 because it was my first in prime time; Athens in 2004 because of my Greek background and because of the fact that it’s the birthplace of the Olympics; Sydney in 2000, because of the hospitality in Australia; Atlanta in ’96 — Muhammad Ali lighting the torch is one of the most memorable Olympic moments ever.
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Athletes are at the center of a number of controversies lately. Are we holding athletes to a higher standard than we should?
I don’t think we’re holding them to some impossible higher standard. I think we’re holding them to a basic standard. We expect that they will not use performance-enhancing drugs to gain an unfair competitive advantage. We expect that as part of a team, a league, a community, that they would get vaccinated. We expect, not that they adhere to any one political philosophy, we just hope that people wouldn’t make outrageous statements that aren’t civil, especially in a time when everyone can tweet out their every thought. That doesn’t seem to me like an impossibly high bar.
Social media has changed the game for better or worse, hasn’t it?
In the past we didn’t necessarily know what everyone’s views were on every subject. Now I think there are a lot of athletes across the political spectrum who would do well to think before they tweet.
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