If Patriots or Eagles players take a knee for racial justice before Super Bowl 52, NBC Sports will show it live. But one thing NBC won't do is pontificate about any protests during the national anthem, promises game announcer Al Michaels.
"We can report it, but what people don't want you to do at that point is editorialize. And we don't plan to do that," he said in a conference call with media. "We cover it, and we report it, and it's simple as that. People don't want to be lectured to – and they don't want to have an editorial comment thrown in right there."
MORE: Anthem will be treated as business as usual by NFL
Cris Collinsworth, Michaels' longtime partner in the booth, doesn’t expect any players to take a knee, given the NFL’s announced plan to donate tens of millions of dollars to groups supporting African-American communities.
The league and players have “made some progress on this front,” Collinsworth noted. “There’s been a bit of a partnership formed, and they’re going to try to get money to some of these community causes.” The league worked closely with player reps on the plan. Commissioner Roger Goodell could have cracked on the protests but hasn't."
The protests — which peaked after President Donald Trump railed against kneelers — died down by the end of the season. But never say never, especially when players know they’ll be the focus of over 100 million U.S. TV viewers Sunday night.
One thing you may never see again is Bob Costas working an NFL game again, starting Sunday night. He and NBC mutually agreed for him to skip the Big Game after he told an industry conference that football “destroys people’s brains.” Instead, Dan Patrick and Liam McHugh will co-host.
The semi-retired Costas told Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he’s no longer the “right fit” for the Super Bowl.
“They get where I’m coming from and I get where they’re coming from,” Costas said. “I grew up a football fan — I never liked it as much as baseball or basketball — but I definitely was a football fan and a lot of the best people I’ve met in sports are football people. ... But if you are at all aware, you cannot watch football without being aware of the devastating effects on so many of those who participate and that makes me feel ambivalent about football — and in some cases very concerned.”
The NFL is NBC's most important property. NBC Sports boss Mark Lazarus said the network doesn’t share Costas’ “ambivalence” about pro football.
“I don’t believe any of us — and everyone should speak for themselves — have any ambivalence toward airing the National Football League,” said Lazarus. “The game is an exciting, fast-paced, hard-hitting game. There clearly are some health concerns that the league and the players have been discussing and are addressing, but I think everyone who plays the game goes in eyes wide open, and our job there is to document it.”