Mike Costello: Covering Usain Bolt, Floyd Mayweather and Sachin Tendulkar for the BBC
Following a 45-year career at the BBC, which ended in 2021, British broadcaster Mike Costello reflects on memories in boxing, athletics and cricket.
Now, as lead boxing commentator for DAZN, he shares a selection of stories that gave him one of the most recognisable voices in sport.
Costello’s first, and arguably most challenging, foreign assignment for the BBC was to cover a four-test series between India and Pakistan in 1989.
“I was very nervous because, even away from the political backdrop, I knew that I had to be spot on,” Costello revealed.
“It was the BBC’s reputation that I had to be mindful of; just one word pronounced incorrectly and I would never be listened to again.”
Working for the BBC World Service meant that Costello had to pay especially close attention to his audience; and, at the time, with the Urdu service generating around 40 million listeners each week, there was no room for slip ups when commentating on cricket matches in Karachi.
Similarly, in athletics, Costello had to be fully accurate and objective to avoid ridicule.
So when he interviewed a 17-year-old Usain Bolt ahead of the 2004 Olympics Games in Athens, Costello took a risk by singing the young athlete’s praises in a BBC World Service documentary.
He said: “I immediately noticed how nervous he was because, back then, he wasn’t used to being around cameras.
“During the interview, though, his strong self-belief was something that I picked up on.
“But in Athens, when Bolt finished fifth in his first-round heat, a BBC Radio 5 Live presenter turned to me and said: ‘some fucking superstar, Mike’.”
It was not until Bolt finally won gold at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 when, as athletics correspondent for BBC Radio 5 Live, Costello played out his documentary for a second time.
“I remember Mark Coogan was stunned at how people were talking with such certainty, four-years prior, about what Bolt was going to achieve,” Costello said.
“This was when I learnt that even geniuses will often take time to prosper and flourish.”
Floyd Mayweather, another athlete destined for stardom, was covered extensively by Costello when he became the boxing correspondent for BBC Radio 5 Live.
Regardless of his polarising demeanour, Costello revelled in the opportunity to commentate on one of the all-time greats and, when Mayweather fought Ricky Hatton in 2007, reporters were spoiled with material throughout fight week.
“Hatton was only given 4,000 tickets to sell, but there must’ve been between 20 and 25 thousand Brits in attendance,” Costello said.
“I spoke to a lot of fans at the weigh-in who didn’t have tickets for the fight but still wanted to be part of the weekend.
“At midnight in Las Vegas, I appeared on the breakfast show aired Friday morning in the UK and, making my way through the casino to the media studio, there was a guy with a bottle of Budweiser who bounced-off both walls down a corridor on his way towards an empty queue for the weigh-in.”
While colossal sporting occasions will always attract thousands of fans, it is important for the athlete to block out any noise around them.
This was true for Sachin Tendulkar who, in his test debut at the age of 16, batted for India amid a cauldron of boos in Pakistan.
“He walked down the steps just twirling his bat, meanwhile, India had lost four wickets,” Costello recalled.
Eventually, as he continued to cover the sport for the BBC, Costello turned down an opportunity to become the cricket correspondent.
He said: “After speaking with Indian and Pakistani journalists, I came to realise how little I knew about the sport compared to them.”
This was because his main passion, before working for the BBC, was boxing.
“It wouldn’t have been possible to have had an active interest in any other sport given how much time I was spending in boxing,” Costello admitted.
During his early 20s, after competing as an amateur boxer, Costello coached at the Lynn AC Boxing Club in Camberwell.
He said: “A guy called Charlie Tucker, who was a real mentor for me, asked me to come along and help him out with coaching.
“I was a similar age to a lot of the fighters in the gym, so they would come to me with any issues they were having at school, at home or with girlfriends, and I could understand what they were going through.”
Costello’s involvement in boxing gave him the platform to get noticed by his editors at the BBC where, initially, he worked in the accounts department.
“I enjoyed sitting in an office all day because I was able to save my energy for the gym,” Costello said.
“But eventually I got bored, so I made a nuisance of myself in the sports room.
“I then got a job as a production secretary once the editors saw me in the corner for a few amateur fights on TV and figured that I must know a bit about boxing.”
In this role, Costello wrote scripts for the BBC World Service which, within a 24-hour period, would have four 15-minute news bulletins dedicated to major sports stories.
“One of my first was about Mike Tyson who, at the time, was just this young kid in New York with an incredible story,” Costello said.
“I would hand the editor my scripts which, when returned to me, were drowning in red ink from where they marked my mistakes.
“Gradually, it would be a real celebration when they were returned to me with no red ink.”
These scripts were then brought to life when Costello became a commentator for radio listeners and, now, for people viewing the action live on DAZN.
He said: “Some of my friends went into news reporting to cover controversial issues in sport, but I wanted to speak about the games that were played and how fights were won or lost.”
