Steve Bower to host NBC’s EPL coverage for two weeks of season

NBC’s lead Premier League host Rebecca Lowe will miss the first two weeks of the 2016/17 season, and will be temporarily replaced by Steve Bower, who will be a familiar face to many soccer fans in the United States.

Instead of hosting coverage from NBC’s studio in Stamford, Connecticut, Lowe will be in Brazil as one of the hosts of NBC’s coverage of the Rio Olympics. She’ll be taking turns hosting the coverage of the Olympics alongside other hosts that include Bob Costas, Dan Patrick, Al Michaels and Ryan Seacrest.

Lowe made her Olympics coverage debut at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia in 2014.

For Bower, it’s been an incredibly busy 12 months. During the 2015/16 season, in addition to his work for BBC’s Match of the Day in England, the former MUTV employee hosted several weeks of NBC’s coverage of the Premier League from April-May 2016 after Lowe was absent on maternity leave.

More recently, he’s been one of the hosts on ESPN’s coverage of Euro 2016 from the studio in Paris as well as an on-site reporter during the first weekend of the tournament.

In addition to Lowe being absent from the first two weeks of NBC’s Premier League coverage, lead commentator Arlo White will also be missing. He’ll be commentating many of the Olympic soccer games in Rio. Have no fear, White will return to his position as NBC’s lead commentator during the third week of the Premier League season.

No decision has been made as of press time regarding who’ll replace White for the first two weeks of the season. It’s quite possible that NBC Sports may decide to use the commentators from the world feed instead.