Bob Costas closed NBC's coverage of Major League Baseball in 2000 when the New York Yankees beat the Oakland Athletics in the AL Championship Series.
When NBC returns to covering baseball this season, Costas will be the first voice welcoming the sport back after the network announced Thursday that the 29-time Sports Emmy winner will host its “Sunday Night Baseball” pregame show.
He will anchor NBC's coverage when the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers open the season hosting Arizona on Thursday, March 26.
“We're trying to make ‘Sunday Night Baseball’ feel big. There's no bigger name associated with baseball than Bob and also great to have him back in the NBC fold,” NBC Sports President Rick Cordella said to The Associated Press. “Bob was the face of NBC Sports and maybe the network for a period of time. To bring him back as he sort of winds down his career is the right thing to do. And when we got baseball back it made a lot of sense.”
NBC, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, carried baseball from 1939-89. It was part of the short-lived Baseball Network with ABC in 1994 and ’95 and then aired playoff games from 1996 through 2000.
“I think a step forward is that baseball was back at one of its natural homes, which is NBC. There’s a lot of baseball history here,” Costas said.
Costas was with NBC for 39 years before leaving in 2019. He hosted 12 Olympics, including 11 as the primetime host, and seven Super Bowls while having a role in 10 NBA Finals and seven World Series.
He has been an emeritus announcer at NBC since 2016, but the return of baseball and the NBA made this a perfect time for a more active role.
“While I’ve been gone from NBC since 2019, we have been in nearly constant contact since shortly after that and just waiting for the right time and the lineup of the right circumstances to come together for me to return. And now those circumstances have perfectly come together,” Costas said during a conference call. “Nothing that I will do will overlap with what others are doing. Others are in the primes of their careers and I’m an icing on the cake guy now, a contributor, a role player, and I look forward to it, especially just because it’s under the NBC umbrella.”
Baseball has always been Costas’ favorite sport. He called games on NBC from 1982-89 and again from 1994-2000. He was one of the announcers for the 1995 World Series and then the main play-by-play voice for the Fall Classic in 1997 and ’99.
He also called games for TBS and MLB Network, but announced after the 2024 American League Division Series between the Kansas City Royals and New York Yankees that he was retiring from play by play.
Costas has been a voice of MLB Network since its start in 2009 and was part of its coverage of Tuesday's Hall of Fame announcement.
In 2018, he received the Hall's Ford C. Frick Award for broadcast excellence.
“There’s no one more associated with baseball who hasn’t played the game than Bob," NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood said. “Others who have played the game might be more associated, but for a non-player. Bob has impacted baseball for generations and will continue to do so now that he’s partnered back with us.”
Costas has had some role with NBC with its return to NBA coverage this season, narrating some opening teases. The 29-time Sports Emmy winner was either a host or play by play announcer during the network’s first NBA coverage stint from 1990 through 2002.
NBC said Costas will continue to contribute to NBA games this season, with additional details to be announced.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
FILE - Bob Costas and Jill Costas arrive on the red carpet at the State Department for the Kennedy Center Honors gala dinner, Dec. 2, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel and Iran exchanged fire early Wednesday as Tehran kept up its pressure on the region's oil industry, hitting a ship in the Strait of Hormuz and targeting infrastructure as concerns grew of a global energy crisis.
Iran has effectively stopped shipping traffic through the narrow strait off its coast, through which about a fifth of the world's oil is shipped from the Persian Gulf toward the Indian Ocean. It has also been targeting oil fields and refineries in Gulf Arab nations as part of a strategy that appeared to be aimed at generating enough global economic pain to pressure the United States and Israel to end their strikes.
Early Wednesday, Kuwait said its defenses had downed eight Iranian drones over the oil-rich nation and Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted five drones heading toward the kingdom's vast Shaybah oil field. A projectile hit a container ship off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in the Strait of Hormuz.
The United Nations Security Council was to vote later in the day on a resolution sponsored by the Gulf Cooperation Council demanding Iran stop attacking its Arab neighbors.
Israel, which launched the war with the United States on Feb. 28, said it had had begun a new wave of attacks on Tehran, following multiple strikes the day before that residents described as some of the heaviest during the war. Explosions were also heard in Beirut and in southern Lebanon after Israel said it had started a new assault on targets related to the Iran-linked militia Hezbollah.
The attacks set a building ablaze in central Beirut in the densely populated Aicha Bakkar area, engulfing the top two floors of the multistory structure in flames. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the strike, which came without warning.
An earlier Israeli strike in southern Lebanon killed five people in the Nabatieh district, while two more were killed in strikes in the Tyre district and the Bint Jbeil district, Lebanon's Health Ministry said. A Red Cross worker also died early Wednesday of wounds sustained Monday, when his team was hit by an Israeli strike while they were rescuing people from an earlier attack.
Nearly 500 people have been killed so far in Lebanon since Hezbollah triggered the latest round of fighting with Israel when it fired rockets into the country’s north after the American and Israeli attacks on Iran started.
Israel warned of three Iranian attacks across the country early Wednesday, with sirens heard in Tel Aviv and elsewhere but no immediate reports of casualties.
In addition to targeting Saudi Arabia's oil fields, the kingdom's defense ministry said it had destroyed six ballistic missiles launched toward Prince Sultan Air Base, a major U.S.- and Saudi-operated air facility in eastern Saudi Arabia. The ministry also said it intercepted and destroyed two drones over Hafar al-Batin, a major city in the eastern province.
In the Strait of Hormuz, Iran hit a container ship with a projectile off Ras al-Khaimah, the UAE’s northern-most emirate on the strait, according to a monitoring site run by the British military.
It said the “extent of the damage is currently unknown but under investigation by the crew.”
The United Arab Emirates said early Wednesday that its air defenses were working to intercept incoming Iranian fire. The wealthy Gulf nation — home to the business and travel hub of Dubai — said Iranian attacks have killed six people and wounded 122 others there.
Bahrain sounded sirens early Wednesday, warning of an incoming Iranian attack. The warnings came a day after an Iranian attack hit a residential building in the capital, Manama, and killed a 29-year-old woman and wounding eight people.
In New York, the U.N. Security Council was to vote Wednesday afternoon on the Gulf Cooperation Council resolution, according to three diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement.
The Gulf Cooperation Council, a six-nation regional bloc, said its own facilities were targeted in an Iranian attack last week on Bahrain.
The draft resolution, obtained by The Associated Press, condemns Iran’s attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. The measure calls for an immediate end to all strikes and threats against neighboring states, including through proxies.
It would be the first Security Council resolution considered since the start of the war.
Oil prices remained well below the peaks hit on Monday but the price of Brent crude, the international standard, was still up some 20% Wednesday from when the war began, and consumers around the world are already feeling the pain at the pump.
The spike in oil prices has been rocking financial markets worldwide because of worries that the war could block the global flow of oil and natural gas for a long time.
Amin Nasser, the president and CEO of Saudi Arabia’s oil giant Aramco, warned on Tuesday that if oil tankers continue to be unable to transit the strait “that will have a serious impact on the global economy.”
The U.S. military said Tuesday it had destroyed 16 Iranian minelayers near the Strait of Hormuz, though U.S. President Donald Trump said in social media posts that there were no reports yet of Iran mining the passage, a prospect that experts warned of in the buildup to the war.
In addition to the nearly 500 people killed in Lebanon, Iran has said more than 1,300 people have been killed there and Israel has reported 12 people dead.
The U.S. has lost seven soldiers while another eight have suffered severe injuries.
Many foreign nationals have been getting out of the Persian Gulf region since the war began, including over 45,000 U.K. citizens, the British Foreign Office said. Some 40,000 people returned to the United States, according to the State Department.
Magdy reported from Cairo, and Rising from Bangkok. Associated Press writers Sally Abou AIJoud in Beirut, Giovanna Dell’Orto in Miami, Julie Watson in San Diego, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this story.
People take shelter in an underground metro station as air raid sirens warn of incoming Iranian missile strike, in Ramat Gan, Israel, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
A man passes in front of a destroyed building that housed a branch of Al-Qard Al-Hassan, a non-bank financial institution run by Hezbollah, which was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
People walk past closed shops at the nearly empty traditional main bazaar in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Motorbikes drive past a billboard depicting Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, center, handing the country’s flag to his son and successor Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, right, as the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini stands at left, in a square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
