Rizzo joins NBC’s Sunday Night Baseball—will it last?

Anthony Rizzo is going all-in on broadcasting, landing a major role on NBC’s “Sunday Night Baseball” alongside Bob Costas and Jason Benetti for Yankees-Red Sox on Sunday, with weekly coaching and a field-level “Inside the Pitch” assignment.

Anthony Rizzo is suddenly everywhere—on FanDuel commercials, in social-media videos, and on the baseball stage where he now has to prove he can do more than hit.

He’s also teamed up with former Cubs teammate David Ross on “The Lovable Reunion.” And on NBC’s “Sunday Night Baseball,” he’s not just in the studio—he’s in the game, working as a studio and in-game analyst.

It’s the kind of transition that can make or break a former star. Rizzo is the face of the team that ended the Cubs’ World Series-championship drought at 108 years. Now the question is whether that spotlight follows him as neatly into broadcasting as it did into baseball.

Bob Costas, the studio host for “Sunday Night Baseball,” believes it will.

“Anthony is as self-critical as anybody who wants to be good at what they do is, but he starts out at a pretty high level,” Costas said. “He’s comfortable. He’s conversive with what’s going on with the game.”

Costas added that Rizzo’s ease shows up in the way he responds under pressure.

“You can sense when the person you are working with is uncomfortable and you have to kind of coax them along. I feel like I can toss almost anything Anthony’s way, and he is going to field it as smoothly as a four-time Gold Glover will.”

Jason Benetti—now the play-by-play voice for “SNB” and a former White Sox TV voice—went even further. He described Rizzo as both quick and unflappable.

“I would add that he’s fearless,” Benetti said. “Anthony has a sense of humor that he trusts. He has a sense of analysis that he trusts.”

Benetti also talked about how Rizzo handles the back-and-forth in broadcast settings.

“Anthony and I are not looking at each other. He’s downstairs; I’m upstairs. The analysts are upstairs. And he maybe has talked over two sentences in six games doing this job. That is other-worldly in being that smooth while also being fearless.”

Rizzo’s next big moment is built into NBC’s schedule. He will join Benetti, Costas, Roger Clemens and Will Middlebrooks on NBC’s broadcast of Yankees-Red Sox at 6 p.m. Sunday.

He’ll be on the pregame show with Costas before moving to his “Inside the Pitch” role during the game.

In that “Inside the Pitch” assignment, Rizzo is at field level—separate from Benetti and the two booth analysts. The concept borrows from NBC’s “Inside the Glass” when it carried the NHL and “On the Bench” from its first season back on NBA coverage.

Rizzo framed it as both a learning curve and a chance to bring himself to the job.

“I’m just learning how to announce better, how to be more energetic and be myself at the same time,” Rizzo said. “It’s really unique being so fresh removed and knowing a lot of guys in the clubhouses and getting their intel and just being up to speed with today’s game.”

To stay current, he said he gets weekly coaching from Bruce Cornblatt, a longtime MLB Network and NBC Sports coordinating producer who now serves as an editorial consultant and talent coach for NBC.

Rizzo credited Benetti and Costas for their help, and he said he marveled at the way Costas prepares.

But he also brings a sense of timing to the booth, including the kind of humor that can quickly become part of a broadcast’s rhythm.

Benetti recalled one moment when Rizzo stepped in.

“There was a game a couple weeks ago where Dan Petry and Mike Bacsik. from the Tigers and the Rangers. were talking about an old friend of theirs that played in the 80s. ” Benetti said. “Rizzo jumps in and he goes, ‘You guys know you’re dating yourselves, right?. You know you’re being old right now?’ ”.

On the Mets-Phillies broadcast last week. Benetti said he was impressed by how Rizzo broke down the erratic Phillies left-hander Jose Alvarado—and what Rizzo thought that would mean for him in the batter’s box. That’s central to “Inside the Pitch. ” where the point is to translate what’s happening on the field into something viewers can understand in real time.

Benetti also appreciated Rizzo’s snark with analysts John Kruk and John Franco.

“He’s got an understanding of people that is well beyond his years,” Benetti said. “I think part of it comes from his journey [as a cancer survivor], but part of it comes from the fact that Anthony is just genuinely a really good teammate, and that is enormous in this enterprise.”

Still, Costas sees the long-term challenge clearly: staying current as his playing familiarity fades.

“The challenge for him eventually will be staying current with baseball as his playing years move further away,” Costas said. “The greats meet that challenge, the Tim McCarvers and people like that, Tony Kubek, who I worked with back in the day.”

Costas added that the work has to evolve.

“Once that direct familiarity fades, then you’ve got to do even more preparation more with the scouts, more with the coaches and the managers and in the clubhouses, which I’m sure that Anthony will do.”

Rizzo sounded ready for that reality.

“NBC reached out pretty early on and said they had a lot of interest, and I definitely had interest in getting into this,” he said. “We hit it off.”

There’s more baseball ahead for Rizzo beyond NBC, too. His Cubs coverage remains split across platforms. The Score will stay the Bulls’ flagship station as part of a multiyear deal.

Chuck Swirsky, analyst Bill Wennington and host Alyssa Bergamini return. For each game, The Score will air a 15-minute pregame show hosted by Swirsky and a 30-minute postgame show with a rotation of hosts.

As for upcoming calling schedules, Alex Faust, analyst Ryan Spilborghs and reporter Tricia Whitaker will call Cubs-Brewers at 6:45 p.m. Friday on Apple TV.

Anthony Rizzo Sunday Night Baseball NBC Yankees-Red Sox Bob Costas Jason Benetti Inside the Pitch The Lovable Reunion Cubs