Bob Costas has a tough job. He has to basically direct traffic so to speak on the NBC broadcast keep people up-to-date on all the happenings in Beijing. The hard part is he is having to bounce between live events and stuff that happened the night before in Beijing.
And while we pretty much know what happens, Costas' job is to keep you interested and attempt to hold the suspense before they show an event that might be more than 12 hours old.
In a society that has become results in real-time and on-demand, Costas is facing the challenge of reporting half-day old news as if it is fresh. It is a job I don't envy. Not to mention he had to sit next to Bela Karolyi and pretend to understand what Bela was saying.
You could see him at times just shaking his head in agreement and you knew damn good and well he didn't understand a word that was being said.
We sometimes criticize sports broadcasters for hyperbole and getting caught up in the heat of the moment. If they had time to digest everything that happened and then talk about it, the thinking is they might be able to lend a little bit better commentary to the event.
Costas however might be proving that may not be true. He has had a few interesting one-liners the past few nights, but tonight was the worst. I don't know if Costas has a bad pun writer or if he just sits up at night thinking this stuff up himself.
After showing the replays of the two US sprint teams drop the baton in the relay, Costas drops this gem on the American viewers, "So the American men's and women's teams go out and lay an egg at the Birds Nest."
Really Bob? That is the best you can do?
Al Michaels gets "Do you believe in miracles?" and that is what you are coming with?
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