Kerri Walsh Jennings, Missy Franklin, Allyson Felix
Monica Schipper/Getty Images, Slaven Vlasik/Getty Images, Araya Doheny/Getty Images
Later this summer, media outlets from around the world will converge on Paris, France, to cover the 2024 Olympic Games.
The media landscape is crowded, and in the US it is made even more complicated by the fact that NBC is the exclusive rights partner and has access to footage and behind the scenes that other media cannot match.
So what can sports media outlets that want to compete do? Yahoo Sports has decided to hire a number of gold medalists as Olympic correspondents.
The sports platform has hired seven-time Olympic gold medalist Allyson Felix to cover and analyze track and field, three-time gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings to cover beach volleyball, five-time gold medalist Missy Franklin and silver medalist Katie Hoff to cover swimming, and gold medalist Shawn Johnson East to cover gymnastics for Yahoo.
In an interview The Hollywood ReporterYahoo Sports Chief Executive Ryan Spoon said the company was looking for a “leader across sports” who could bring a “perspective” to its game coverage.
“This is going to sound ridiculously obvious, but you have to start with what’s important to the fans,” Spoon says. “They’re at the top of the list in terms of skill, personality, results, knowledge and interest. And another interesting thing that I think is really important here is that they’re all ambassadors for their respective sports.”
“I think they’ve all been absolutely successful at the highest level and are multiple Olympians. So what does it mean to do it overseas? What does it mean for these guys, who are all different in size and character? And we were lucky because we didn’t have to go down the list. They’re the top names that any fan of these sports can get behind.”
Players will provide analysis, conduct player interviews and host features and video content will be shared across the company’s proprietary platforms and social channels during the match.
But Yahoo Sports will also rely on a roster of media partners that includes NBC Sports.
Obviously, we start by trying to serve as many fans as possible, and we do that by scaling,” Spoon said. “We have relationships with all of our fans. We aim to create the best content through written analysis, providing results, providing personalities, providing videos, and we do that through social media. But we also recognize that whether we’re the best in the world or not, we can’t do it comprehensively on our own, so we’re looking for partners to help us on that.”
Yahoo Sports will also be partnering with USA Swimming on a content distribution deal that will feature dedicated landing pages and extensive coverage ahead of the trials and competitions, which Spoon hopes will get readers ready for the games.
“Obviously prior to the Trials and even before the Olympics, we can start doing some storytelling and results presentation,” Spoon said. “We think that’s important for building an audience and sharing knowledge.”
