Mike Tirico Becomes New Primetime NBC Olympics Anchor

As first reported in a Feb. 9 New York Times article, Mike Tirico will anchor NBC’s prime time coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympics from Pyeongchang, South Korea, replacing Bob Costas who had been in the network’s primary Olympics anchor role for 24 years.

Tirico joined NBC in May 2016 after a 25-year stint at ESPN. He was a daytime host during the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics. He has also called some National Football League and Notre Dame games for NBC and has hosted the British Open golf championship for Golf Channel and NBC.

“It just felt to me like the right time and it’s felt like the right time for a while,” Costas said in an interview this week, in advance of NBC’s scheduled announcement on “Today” on Thu., Feb. 9.

“This was a good time to step away, while I could still do it,” he said.

Costas took over NBC’s prime-time assignment in 1992, when the Summer Olympics were in Barcelona, Spain.

The legendary broadcaster, now 64 years old, decided prior to the Rio Games that it would be his final Olympics as the prime-time host.

“Rio had some capstone moments,” Costas told the New York Times. “Michael Phelps was finishing off. So was Usain Bolt. And Simone Biles was emerging. It had moments that felt like closure to me, and this felt like a good time to step aside.”

Costas is also stepping down from hosting NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” pre-game show “Football Night in America,” although he will host NBC’s coverage of Super Bowl LII in 2018.