Who

NBC fixture Bob Costas' trademark boyish good looks and reassuring baritone made him a sports broadcasting icon. But after 25 years of having him shoved down their throats every time they try to watch a sporting event, viewers may be forgiven for wanting to hurl the remote at the TV when they see his face.

Backstory

Born in Queens and raised on Long Island, Costas attended Syracuse before dropping out and landing his first broadcasting job doing play-by-play for the American Basketball Association's Spirits of St. Louis. He moved up to NBC Sports in 1980 and quickly became one of the most prominent sports broadcasters on television, covering Major League Baseball, the NBA, the NFL, and the Olympics for the network. He also branched out into other formats, hosting the late-night talk show Later with Bob Costas in the late '80s and early '90s. In 2001, he signed a deal to moonlight for HBO: He's since hosted a handful of programs for the pay cabler, including the long-running but recently-canceled Inside the NFL and Costas Now. In between his gigs, he's found time to make cameo appearances in movies and shows like Arli$$, Newsradio, Cheers, The Drew Carey Show, and BASEketball.

Of note

Costas has been Dick Ebersol's workhorse at NBC Sports for more than two decades, anchoring the network's Olympic coverage and nearly every other major sporting event the network pulls in. Of course, it's hardly slave labor: the 18-time Emmy winner reportedly rakes in $10 million a year for his efforts. So what's next for Costas? Although some have suggested baseball commissioner—Costas is a rabid baseball fan and wrote a 2000 bestseller, Fair Ball: A Fan's Case For Baseball—most signs point to him staying on TV. In 2009, he signed a multiyear contract with the MLB Network to host original programming and serve as a play-by-play announcer for the channel, and he's also become a popular sub for Larry King on CNN, leading some to suspect that he might be in line to replace the 123-year-old broadcaster if he ever decides to retire or kicks the bucket before his contract runs out.

Personal

Costas has been married to fellow broadcaster Jill Sutton since 2004. He has two children, son Keith and daughter Taylor, from his 17-year marriage to Carole Randall Krumenacher. Costas and family recently moved into the luxe, Robert A.M. Stern-designed 15 Central Park West, where he can now chat about sports in the elevator with Denzel Washington (a football fan), former Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill (baseball), hedge funder Dan Och (baseball, too), and Dan Loeb (surfing and sailing, mostly).

True story

In the mid-'80s, he once jokingly vowed that if baseball player Kirby Puckett were hitting over .350 by the time his son was born, he would name the child Kirby. Puckett indeed kept his average up, and Bob's firstborn son is named Keith Kirby Costas.