PARIS – Even pouring rain couldn’t dampen the magic of the Opening Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where cruises along the Seine River showcased the host country’s history and culture in a variety of creative ways, paying tribute to France, its people and the Olympics.
What about the NBC commentary? Well, it was pretty underwhelming.
Peyton Manning and Kelly Clarkson are the official co-hosts of the event, along with Olympic presenter Mike Tirico, and NBC had been promoting their participation for months before the opening ceremony. Executives’ gamble to draw in a wider audience by bringing in the Season 1 “American Idol” winner and a Pro Football Hall of Famer seemed like a great idea in the boardroom.
In reality, it couldn’t have gone any worse.
Tirico was a great host and commentator and delivered as usual, but Manning and Clarkson were distracting at best and unbearable to listen to at worst.
2024 Olympic Medals: Who is leading the medal count? Let’s track the medals in each sport to find out.
Fans at home aren’t tuning in to hear a talk show host (Clarkson) and a football commentator (Manning) debate matters outside their sphere of influence — they’re looking for substantive information about the stories of athletes from around the world.
The broadcast didn’t get much traction when Clarkson called the rain “magical” twice in 15 seconds or when Manning briefly touched the quarterback’s wristband. At least Manning seemed to get some coverage by talking to players and sharing anecdotes. By the end of the (overly long) segment, it felt like both men had been benched, especially Clarkson.
When NBC needed her voice most, to appreciate Celine Dion’s performance at the show’s closing, Clarkson literally said, “The truth is, I can’t speak.”
Snoop Dogg may have been NBC’s saving grace. The rapper is set to feature heavily on the show over the next two weeks, so the timing was right: He provided some much-needed comedy on Friday.
The most disappointing thing about the broadcast was that it didn’t properly reflect what was going on in Paris: a 20-minute dance party (bordering on a rave) on a barge barely got any attention.
Despite the rain, many of the boat parade’s visual elements were moving and resonant. A metal scene featuring French band Gojira was an early highlight (followed by an ode to “Les Miserables”), while 12 headless Marie Antoinette mannequins appeared in the Conciergerie. A performance by French singer Aya Nakamura and the Republican Guard mixed history and contemporary music. A mock fashion show and a tribute to Louis Vuitton were other Parisian icons that translated well on TV. The final Eiffel Tower light show, Celine Dion’s performance beneath the landmark and the lighting of the Olympic cauldron were historic. Lady Gaga helped get the festivities off to a proper start.
The enthusiasm of fans who braved the elements created a celebratory atmosphere on the ground, but television coverage struggled to convey the danger of having to focus on the boats and the immediate action on the river.
NBC didn’t give enough coverage to the American rowing team or to the talented reporter Maria Taylor, who actually asked questions (a rarity on TV these days). This kind of exclusive access should have been emphasized more. It was a wasted opportunity to feature athletes outside of the big names like A’ja Wilson, Noah Lyles, Joel Embiid and Stephen Curry.
Again, it’s worth pointing out how much difficulty the rain caused on air and likely affected her ability to get her message across to Taylor on the boat, but if this was planned from the start, she would have been better off sitting next to Tirico as a co-host.
As for a better choice for co-host, how about Rebecca Rowe, who handled the pre-ceremony coverage, or maybe Snoop?
At one point, Manning’s audio sounded as if he had dipped his microphone into the Seine. “Today” host Hoda Kotb promised to FaceTime Simone Biles’ family while interviewing them on a bridge over the Seine. That promise never came to fruition, and Kotb disappeared from the air for nearly three hours. After her co-host Savannah Guthrie finished one of the “Today” segments saying she couldn’t hear anything, the network suddenly inserted its first commercial of the broadcast. NBC kept its promise and aired the first hour of the show without commercials.
Producing an opening ceremony like this was always going to be a challenge, and Molly Solomon, president and executive producer of NBC Sports Olympics, said it will be the most complicated event ever from a television standpoint.
“It’s going to be bold, it’s going to be brave, it’s going to be daring and it’s going to be unforgettable,” Solomon told USA Today Sports in May.
Unfortunately for U.S. audiences — and NBC — that may be mostly for the wrong reasons.
