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Bob Costas, the longtime sportscaster and prime-time host on NBC, alleged in an interview that aired on Sunday that the network’s executives abruptly removed him from covering last year’s Super Bowl after he criticized the violence in football and how the “game destroys people’s brains.”
His nearly 40-year relationship with NBC Sports, first as its boyish announcer and later as elder statesman, came crashing down over five days in November 2017. At a symposium that month with fellow journalists, Mr. Costas remarked on what he saw as the life-altering dangers of the sport, devastating consequences for its players and existential questions confronting the National Football League.