Kostis On CBS: "I believe the production has suffered over the last few years."

Rick Young caught up with ousted CBS announcer Peter Kostis to discuss his departure. Many comments are of note, but these two in particular stood out:

“The timing and the reason for mine and Gary’s departure are the ongoing negotiations with a new television contract,” Kostis explained. “That’s involved here. I don’t know how exactly or what it could be but I do believe the next television contract is going to be radically different. I don’t have any basis for saying that other than my gut instinct. I do know the tour is gearing up to be able to handle gambling. I think it’s one of the ways they’re hoping to grow their fan base with younger people.”

Interesting that he ties the timing with negotiations. Meetings started some time ago, so is he implying a Hail Mary play by CBS?

And this probably means he and producer Lance Barrow won’t be trading Christmas cards:

“There’s a fine line between familiarity and staleness,” he said. “What we’ve been hearing over and over from fans since this happened is, ‘You guys are the voices of my weekends watching golf and we’ve grown to love it.’ There’s a familiarity for the viewers with the CBS team. Having said that, I don’t think it was the announcers that were stale. I believe the production has suffered over the last few years. That’s all I’m going to say. I’ll just leave it at that.”