Bob Costas has been a fixture in broadcast booths for decades and worked with MLB Network in recent years. But the legendary broadcaster didn’t hold back when criticizing some of baseball’s decision making.
Costas joined 95.7 The Game’s “Damon & Ratto” Thursday with hosts Ray Ratto and Dan Devone (filling in for Damon Bruce) to discuss the Olympics, MLB’s decision-making, the lockout and more. You can listen to the full interview here:
Costas unloaded on MLB when discussing the sport’s decisions when it comes to the Championship Series and World Series at the end of the year.
“When you’re in a situation of always grabbing the last nickel anywhere you can find it, then you can’t look at the benefits of the game long range,” Costas said. “It infuriates me that baseball allows League Championship games, whichever LCS that FOX has, for some of those games to be on FS1, which most people can’t even find. How can you have an LCS game on FS1? How can you give up so much of your game and put it in shadows just because you’re getting paid for it, just so that a large portion of the country – the World Series participants, or at least half of the World Series participants – come almost out of nowhere?”
Costas also isn’t a fan of MLB starting World Series games after 8 p.m. ET on the East Coast, like they did for last year’s matchup between the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros.
“How can you not play, at least the occasional World Series early enough so that kids can say that they saw an exciting game and this is why they’re becoming fans, paying fans 20 years from now when they’re adults,” Costas said.
As for the current state of the game, MLB and its Players’ Association are believed to still be at an impasse at the negotiating table, as spring training games have been canceled through at least March 4. Costas likened the negotiations to a “game of chicken.”
“How many games are we willing to lose – revenue for the owners and paychecks for the players,” Costas said. “And at what point do we realize our mutual interest? The game has issues. It’s had issues for a long time, issues that they’re not addressing. The game on the field, pace of play and other things that make the game less entertaining as an entertainment product than it used to be.
“Can the game take another work stoppage? This is a work stoppage, it’s a lockout. It doesn’t matter to the fans until they start missing games that matter. If they start missing games that matter, that’s mutually damaging. Not just to the owners, but to the players as well.”
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