Are you talking about the Olympics? For the 2024 Summer Games, NBC Sports has assembled a host of celebrities to bring star power to the 17-day event.
At the opening ceremony on July 26, Kelly Clarkson, Peyton Manning, Today hosts Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb and sports commentator Mike Tirico will be on hand as thousands of athletes descend the Seine aboard an unprecedented 4-mile-long flotilla of more than 90 boats.
Names set to cover the Games include NBA star Dwyane Wade (basketball), comedian Leslie Jones (who has been named “chief super fan commentator”), longtime commentator Mary Carillo, talent from NBC including Willie Geist and Steve Kornacki and Snoop Dogg, who recently said, “I’ll bring that Snoop style to the mix.” »
Alex Cooper, host and executive producer of the popular podcast Call her daddy, also participates in network coverage. She will welcome Watch with Alex Cooper, a series of live interactive watch parties on Peacock. The show will feature Cooper, as-yet-unannounced guests and friends, sharing their thoughts and answering fan questions about live Olympic events, including soccer, gymnastics and basketball. The goal is to add a common visual experience to games.
And during the closing ceremony (live on NBC and Peacock) Tonight’s showJimmy Fallon will make his debut as an Olympic commentator, co-hosting with Tirico, sportscaster Terry Gannon and Olympians Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski. “NBC is really pulling out all the stops to make this a really big event,” says Chris Miller, showrunner of Tonight’s show.
Miller says THR that Fallon, in addition to co-hosting the closing ceremony, “will also film some clips that will be broadcast on NBC during the Olympics.” After the closing ceremony on Sunday August 11, Tonight’s show the host will then return directly to Los Angeles to record his Monday episode. “We could have [aired] rehearsal that Monday,” Miller says, but they decided that having Fallon open the show by saying, “I just got back from the Olympics a few hours ago” would be “high energy.” Miller adds: “We’ll sleep later.”
Lipinski, for her part, is already preparing what she will bring for her stay in Paris: “This will be my fifth trip to the Olympics as a broadcaster with my partner in crime Johnny Weir. We love to match – we now have Terry Gannon on board too! — so we obviously coordinate a little in advance, and with a Parisian theme this year, we’re really pulling out all the stops!
A version of this story first appeared in the June 5 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
