Bob Costas Done After 40 Years At NBC: 'It's All Settled Quietly and Happily For All Concerned'

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Long-time NBC Sports broadcaster Bob Costas -- shown here covering Super Bowl XLVIII in 2015 -- has officially split with long-time employer NBC Sports. Costas, 66, will reportedly still cover Major League Baseball and helm... Credit: Tom Pennington/Getty Images

By early reports, long-time sportscaster Bob Costas and NBC Sports have split ways after 40 years, minus the fanfare or an official announcement befitting a legend among sports broadcast journalists.

"It's all settled quietly and happily for all concerned," Costas, told The New York Post on Wednesday. An NBC spokesman confirmed the professional break-up but declined to give details.

Costas refused to give specifics on an agreed-to buyout, but he did say the financial settlement agreement between him and the network were reconciled "more than fairly."

It came to light last August that the two parties were in negotiations for a settlement on his final three years left on a multi-million dollar contract.

The Post reported then that while baseball remains Costas's personal favorite sport, his vocal criticism of head injuries in the National Football League led to him not covering the 2018 Super Bowl.

In April 2018, the Associated Press reported that Costas was not backing down on his belief that the NFL faces a day of reckoning on the issue of brain injuries.

Also, it's been a trick devising new roles for Costas to play, considering especially the NFL issue. Reportedly, in 2012, he became NBC Sports emeritus broadcaster, in keeping with the previous so-called Tom Brokaw clause.

But Costas, 66, said he will keep working in other venues. He said will continue play-by-play coverage about 20 games on the MLB Network, plus he will participate in the Baseball Hall of Fame inductee announcement ceremony within the week, wrote The Post.

In addition, he said is may helm a combo sports-news interview show.

"If I do anything else, it will be a hybrid of my HBO show and 'Later,'" Costas said.

It seems the inveterate, long-time Olympics coverage leader and prior to 2018, the NBC Super Bowl coverage, supposedly will not sit around in typical kick-back retirement fashion.

The reliable, witty, insightful face of the Olympics for decades, Costas turned over the job to Mike Tirico in 2017.

Costas was an everyman in broadcast sports coverage, as he hosted the Olympics, covered the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA Finals and the Triple Crown. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in August 2018.

Now the veteran, likable can pretty much choose what he wants to cover and if he wants to work.

However, his views on head injuries in the NFL may not get him back in the Super Bowl booth. In 2018, prior to the Super Bowl between the eventual-champion Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots, Costas told The Post:

"I have been making the same points for several years, often on NBC," Costas said at the time. "In halftime commentaries, interviews with Roger Goodell and other prominent NFL figures, appearances on CNN and elsewhere, I have addressed the issue of football and its undeniable connection to brain trauma many times. Why? Because the evidence is overwhelming and the effects are often devastating.

"It's the elephant in the stadium at every game whether others choose to acknowledge it or not. And it's not going away. So the idea that I am only now finding my voice on this, or that NBC was taken aback by what I said at Maryland is just wrong. It's all simple and straightforward."

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