this is one of those times where the intersection of business politics and sports politics seems pretty obvious, even if most of the people involved deny or downplay that being the case. the...
this is one of those times where the intersection of business politics and sports politics seems pretty obvious, even if most of the people involved deny or downplay that being the case. the networks which broadcast the NFL obviously have a vested interest in football remaining their golden goose, and the NFL obviously has a vested interest in keeping the pipeline of players coming despite the suggestions that football is likely to damage the brain. but the tension between acknowledging the reality like costas tried to and downplaying it in the name of ratings and financial gain like the networks and the NFL seem to isn't going to go away, either.
"As I got closer and closer to the game, I became ambivalent about it," he says. "The sheer violence of the game, and then the celebration of that violence, even before CTE became a specific issue ... I just didn't feel comfortable with that. That felt stupid to me."
Costas did host "Inside the NFL" on HBO for six seasons beginning in 2002, but he says he justified that in his mind because the show provided autonomy to offer commentary and typically conveyed a level of journalism.
But when NBC returned to football in 2005, Costas says Ebersol asked him to return as host and he agreed "out of loyalty" and "as kind of a good soldier."
During Week 2 of the 2010 season, following a series of high-profile, concussion-related incidents, Costas presented his first essay about the topic to NBC viewers.
"More and more is being learned about the now-undeniable link between concussions especially repeat concussions -- and subsequent problems with dementia, depression, early onset Alzheimer's, an entire array of serious medical problems stemming from an injury that is more common in football than in most other sports."
"Here's the truth," Costas said. "America's most popular sport is a fundamentally dangerous game where the risk of catastrophic injury is not incidental, it is significant."
Costas says he never heard from anyone with the NFL complaining about his statements, nor does he say his bosses at NBC protested or suggested they had ever been contacted by league officials.
Gentile, the former CBS executive, says it wouldn't surprise him that Costas never received complaints from the NFL -- because the league officials always called Gentile and not the broadcaster himself when they had concerns. Still, Gentile says, the NFL was "never really dictatorial, at least in my lifetime."
...
Gentile, though, understands why the NFL might have become more controlling over time.
"It's an existential issue," says Gentile, who also is the director of the Seton Hall University Sports Poll, which conducts regular surveys on sports-related issues. "The NFL is faced with this looming head-injury issue. We conducted polls at Seton Hall and you could see the numbers go up of parents who didn't want their kids to play football. That doesn't speak well to the future, so I think there's a strong sensitivity there [from the NFL]. This is, 'Do we exist or not.'
"And it's just as important to the networks that the NFL continue to be the NFL."
BY THE TIME NBC was officially signing its new deal, Costas says he had invoked a clause in his contract that would allow him to step away from football and the Olympics to take on an emeritus role. He would host one more season on Sunday nights and then turn the show over to Mike Tirico. Costas' NFL swan song would be Feb. 4, 2018, when NBC next aired the Super Bowl.
But three months before the Super Bowl, the plan imploded during one dramatic week. First, on Nov. 7, 2017, Costas appeared at a journalism symposium at the University of Maryland.
There, he told a crowd of more than 400, "The issue [in sports] that is most substantial -- the existential issue -- is the nature of football itself."
...
Within an hour, Costas says he received a text from Flood, who oversees sports production for NBC.
"I think the words were, 'You've crossed the line,'" says Costas, who says he no longer has the text.
"My thought was, 'What line have I crossed?'"
Later, Costas says he pointed out that he had been saying these things about football for years -- often on NBC. That didn't matter; it seemed this was one time too many.
Costas was told he was off the Super Bowl LII broadcast.
In the end, Costas says he regretted ever taking part in the story; not because he regretted his comments about football, but because of the strain it created around his relationships with NBC colleagues.
Taken as a whole, it reflected something Costas said in one fashion or another during several conversations with Outside the Lines: As much as he cherished his time at NBC, he and the network simply had reached a point of divergent interests.
"I am not a Howard Cosell at the end of his career deciding he doesn't like boxing," Costas says. "I decided long ago that I had misgivings about football, and I tried to use the forum they gave me to make those points. They gave me bits and pieces, but eventually they took those bits and pieces away from me."
this is one of those times where the intersection of business politics and sports politics seems pretty obvious, even if most of the people involved deny or downplay that being the case. the networks which broadcast the NFL obviously have a vested interest in football remaining their golden goose, and the NFL obviously has a vested interest in keeping the pipeline of players coming despite the suggestions that football is likely to damage the brain. but the tension between acknowledging the reality like costas tried to and downplaying it in the name of ratings and financial gain like the networks and the NFL seem to isn't going to go away, either.