Listeners to The Media Noise podcast with Demetri Ravanos here on Barrett Sports Media are in for a treat this week. Starting Friday, you will hear Part 1 of a 2-part interview that Ravanos did with legendary broadcaster Bob Costas (Part 2 will air November 24).
During this interview, Costas talks about his relationship with Bomani Jones, who he works with on Back On The Record With Bob Costas on HBO, what his favorite minor league baseball team names are, and much more. But, he also gets into his role in the 1998 film, BASEketball
Costas had interacted with the Zucker brothers before and he actually was invited to do another one of their movies before, but he ultimately had to turn it down.
“They had invited me to be part of The Naked Gun movie that includes all of the scenes at Anaheim Stadium. One of the scenes is when they pan across the broadcast booth, and again a sendup of the idea that you need a battalion of people to call a baseball game. I was supposed to be a part of that and I wanted to do it and I had some kind of conflict and couldn’t. I said to them if you ever have another project, let me know.”
However, Costas’s agent, the late Barry Frank, didn’t really want him to do the movie, but Costas wanted to give it a shot.
During this movie, Costas got the chance to work with Al Michaels in the broadcast booth. The two of them never got to work together until that point. While the two iconic broadcasters never met any of the other key figures in the movies since their scenes were shot on the last day of filming, they knew how important their scenes were.
“They needed our scenes to tie the movie together. Without us, they didn’t have any connective tissue to tie the story to go from one part of the story to the next. At the beginning, it seems like it is fun and then they are tossing some lines our way you can’t believe even though there is one line attached to me that they use in the trailer.”
However, the one issue that comes across is Costas and Michaels figuring out that they are both getting paid different amounts of money to be a part of the film. After Michaels threatens to leave, he ends up getting more money out of it. Neither of them knew how much they were getting until they ended up flipping a coin to determine who reveals their salary first.
“When we take a break for lunch, Al says to me this may be going sideways. I say to Al at least it pays well. He looks at me and he says what do you mean. I said, well it’s more than fair…It turns out I was getting five times as much as he does. At least my agent who didn’t want me to do it was determined if you were going to do it, you were going to get paid through the nose. In the end, he got a little bit extra beyond what I got just so he can say he was made completely whole.”
