When the mixed doubles round-robin matches begin in curling Wednesday morning in Beijing, so too will XIV Olympic Winter Games, underway in China less than six months after the torch was extinguished to wrap up the delayed Tokyo Summer Olympics.
It will kick off a record 2,800 hours of Olympics coverage from February 2-20 across U.S. rightsholders NBC and its network siblings USA Network (400 hours of coverage planned beginning February 2) and CNBC (80 hours planned). Coverage is also available at NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app via authentication (2,100 hours planned) as well as on the Peacock streaming service, which is ramping up from its Tokyo debut and will air every event from all 15 sports live in real time via its premium tier as well as offer full replays.
NBC’s main coverage launches its primetime coverage on Thursday, February 3, with live team figure skating getting underway along with men’s and women’s moguls, leading into the Opening Ceremony on Friday live in the early morning (6:30 a.m. ET) and again in primetime (5 p.m.; encore at 8 p.m.; replay at 12:38 a.m. PT Saturday). Mike Tirico from Beijing and Savannah Guthrie from New York will anchor the coverage.
In all, NBC will broadcast almost 200 hours of coverage across 18 nights of primetime live across all U.S. time zones beginning at 8 p.m. ET (7 p.m. ET on Sundays); Tirico is hosting the first week, and Maria Taylor the second. With NBC Sports Network no more, USA Network will offer 24/7 live coverage as the Games’ cable home, with CNBC picking up the coverage after its market programming, led again by curling and international hockey.
(Tirico, by the way, will attempt to pull off the rare double of hosting the Olympics and the Super Bowl pregame show on the same day — both events are on NBC this year. The plan calls for him to fly to Los Angeles after his hosting duties Thursday, February 10, host the Olympics on Friday, February 11 from a set outside SoFi Stadium, then host the primetime Olympics show Saturday night followed by hosting NBC’s five-hour Super Bowl LVI Pregame Show on Sunday. He’ll then host Sunday night’s Olympic competition.)
Beijing is 13 hours ahead of the Eastern U.S. time zone and 16 ahead of Pacific time zone, meaning lots of live coverage options in primetime as well as during NBC’s Primetime Plus, which returns to follow late local news in most time zones. All will be live on Peacock via its premium tier.
In addition to live competition, Peacock will also offer full replays available immediately upon conclusion as well as exclusive daily studio programming, medal ceremonies, highlight clips, and simulcasts of NBC’s nightly primetime show. Via its Olympic Spotlight Channel, it also will offer four daily shows: the live highlight show The Olympics Show (8-10 a.m. ET); Olympic Ice (10-11 a.m. ET) focused on figure skating; Winter Gold (11 a.m.-noon ET) will provide a comprehensive look at the most compelling performances of the day; and the recap show Top Highlights (8 p.m.-8:00 a.m. ET).
Live coverage of the Beijing Olympics begins in earnest begins Wednesday when the U.S. and Australia face off in mixed doubles curling (7:05 a.m. ET, NBCOlympics.com and Peacock). Coverage will wrap February 20 with the Closing Ceremony on NBC and Peacock.
Anchors and Commentators
Overall, there are 84 commentators assigned to cover the Beijing Olympics, though not many in China owing to restrictions from Covid-19 that are also limiting spectators to invited guests only.
NBC’s broadcasting teams for figure skating, Alpine skiing and snowboarding originally were going to be onsite, but the rest were already scheduled to cover events from NBC’s Stamford, Conn, headquarters. NBC also kept most of its team at home for Tokyo Summer Olympics but did have teams on site in Japan for some sports including gymnastics and swimming.
In addition to Tirico, who will host Primetime and the first half of Prime Plus (giving way to Taylor after the Super Bowl) from Beijing before heading to L.A. for his NFL duties, NBC hosts include onsite and Prime Plus (middle weekend) host Craig Melvin, and daytime host Rebecca Lowe. On cable and Peacock, hosts are Ahmed Fareed, Jimmy Roberts, Lindsay Czarniak and Jac Collinsworth (following Super Bowl) for USA Network; Carolyn Manno for CNBC; and Kathryn Tappen (following Super Bowl). On Peacock, the team includes Matt Iseman, Jonny Moseley, Adnan Virk, Brian Boitano, Ashley Wagner and Scott Hamilton.
Correspondents include gold medal skier Lindsey Vonn, MSNBC Big Board recruit Steve Kornacki reprising from Tokyo, and Sam Brock and Anne Thompson on the Sports Desk.
Andy Browne, editorial director of Bloomberg New Economy Forum, and Jing Tsu, the John M. Schiff Professor of East Asian Studies & Comparative Literature at Yale, will contribute to coverage of the Opening Ceremony and NBC’s first night of primetime coverage on Thursday.
Here’s a rundown of who’s covering what by sport:
Alpine Skiing
Dan Hicks, Play by Play
Ted Ligety, Analyst
Steve Porino, Analyst
Todd Lewis, Reporter
Biathlon
Bill Doleman, Play by Play
Chad Salmela, Analyst
Tom Abbott, Reporter
Bobsled/Luge/Skeleton
Leigh Diffey, Play by Play
Erin Hamlin, Luge Analyst
John Morgan, Bobsled Analyst
Bree Schaaf, Skeleton/Bobsled Analyst
Lewis Johnson, Reporter
Cross Country Skiing
Steve Schlanger, Play by Play
Chad Salmela, Analyst
Kikkan Randall, Analyst
Naoko Funayama, Reporter
Curling
Jason Knapp, Play by Play
Jim Kozimor, Play by Play
Kenny Rice, Play by Play
Kevin Martin, Analyst
Tyler George, Analyst
Jamie Sinclair, Analyst
Corey Robinson, Reporter
Figure Skating
Terry Gannon, Play by Play
Tara Lipinski, Analyst
Johnny Weir, Analyst
Tanith White, Analyst
Andrea Joyce, Reporter
Freestyle Skiing/Snowboarding/Big Air
Shane Bacon, Play by Play (Big Air)
Todd Harris, Play by Play
Trace Worthington, Play by Play
Kelly Clark, Analyst
Hannah Kearney, Analyst
Todd Richards, Analyst
Tom Wallisch, Analyst
Seth Wescott, Analyst
Tina Dixon, Analyst/Reporter
Hailey Hunter, Reporter
Sam Brock, Reporter (Big Air)
Randy Moss, Reporter
Hockey
Kenny Albert, Play by Play
Brendan Burke, Play by Play
John Walton, Play by Play
Chris Vosters, Play by Play
Brian Boucher, Analyst
Anson Carter, Analyst
Keith Jones, Analyst
Monique Lamoureux-Morando, Analyst
AJ Mlezcko, Analyst
Dom Moore, analyst
Eddie Olczyk, Analyst
Angela Ruggiero, Analyst
Leila Rahimi, Reporter
Short Track
Ted Robinson, Play by Play
Katherine Adamek, Analyst
Andrea Joyce, Reporter
Ski Jumping
Paul Burmeister, Play by Play
Johnny Spillane, Analyst
Naoko Funayama, Reporter
Speed Skating
Bill Spaulding, Play by Play
Joey Cheek, Analyst
Accessibility
NBCUniversal is providing closed captioning for all Olympic and Paralympic events airing across its broadcast and cable networks, along with digital livestreams which were made available in full for the first time ever in Tokyo.
Audio description services will be available for viewers who are blind or visually impaired via the Secondary Audio Program (SAP) channel, provided by Descriptive Video Works. For the Paralympic Games, NBC Sports will provide live audio description for all broadcast programming, including those aired outside primetime hours, as well as on all simulstreams.
NBCU also says it is also improving web content accessibility — keyboard navigation, color contrast, support for screen readers, etc. — will be available on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app.
