NBC’s Steve Kornacki turned into a star during the 2020 presidential election. While Americans waited for the call that Joe Biden had turned Donald Trump into a one-term president, Kornacki manned a board somewhere at NBC headquarters and broke down vote dumps from swing states for days, explaining where said votes were coming from and what the implications were for both candidates.
Kornacki’s popularity led to NBC trying to find other ways to keep him on television doing things of/related to numbers — because, you know, we don’t exactly have elections with national implications every week in America. He got to do some big board work for Football Night in America on Sundays in which he broke down the AFC and NFC playoff pictures, and on Saturday, Kornacki and his big board were back to make a projection for the 147th running of the Kentucky Derby.
The good news for NBC is that he did not mess things up for future airing of Steve Kornacki programming by whiffing: Kornacki predicted that Medina Spirit would end up winning, and lo and behold, that’s exactly what happened, with the horse winning by a margin almost as narrow as Biden did in Georgia.
…and @SteveKornacki takes Medina Spirit… pic.twitter.com/O4LmpwYrqM
— NBC Sports PR (@NBCSportsPR) May 1, 2021
As I said on the air, if you’re giving me double digit odds on Baffert, I’ll take it! pic.twitter.com/0s4UMbNUCA
— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) May 1, 2021
He does it again!! Bob Baffert captures #KyDerby No. 7 with Medina Spirit. pic.twitter.com/48qorFi1Ps
— Kentucky Derby (@KentuckyDerby) May 1, 2021
Steve Kornacki please give me the Powerball numbers at your leisure.