It looks like NBC will be going big on August’s Rio Olympics in a variety of ways, with over 6,700 hours of coverage and significant online programming to buttress its television feeds, and that extends to the announcing front. A NBC release from Monday cites their 170 commentators as “the most ever for an Olympics“:

Bob Costas leads a record 170 NBC Olympics commentators (which includes those to be announced in the coming weeks) – the most ever for an Olympics – as NBCUniversal presents coverage of the Games of the XXXI Olympiad from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil across NBC, NBCSN, Bravo, CNBC, Golf Channel, MSNBC, USA Network, TELEMUNDO, NBC UNIVERSO, the NBC Sports app, and NBCOlympics.com.

The Opening Ceremony of the 2016 Rio Olympics is one month from today – Friday, August 5 on NBC. Matt Lauer, co-anchor of TODAY, Meredith Vieira, special correspondent for TODAY, and Hoda Kotb, co-host of the fourth hour of TODAY, will host the Opening Ceremony.

More than 40 members of the team will be making their NBC Olympics debuts, led by Golf Channel’s David Feherty.

NBC Sports Group presents expanded coverage of the Rio Games, including golf returning to the Olympics for the first time since 1904. The overall talent lineup features the return of many of the network’s signature Olympic hosts, play-by-play commentators and analysts with Olympic experience.

The NBC release outlines many of the hosts and analysts, and adds that the 59 Olympic medals (25 gold, 21 silver, and 13 bronze) NBC analysts have won would place them fifth in the London 2012 medal count. Those sport-specific analysts aren’t easy to find, but it looks like the network has a good mix of veterans such as Rowdy Gaines (swimming, calling his sixth Olympics) and Cynthia Potter (diving, calling her seventh) and rookies such as Feherty (golf), Nastia Liukin (gymnastics) and John Smith (wrestling). There are lots of familiar names on the hosting side, too, including Costas, Al Michaels, Dan Patrick, Rebecca Lowe, Liam McHugh, Carolyn Manno and Ryan Seacrest, and plenty on the reporting side, including Michele Tafoya (swimming), Pierre McGuire (water polo), Alex Flanagan (general) and Kathryn Tappen (beach volleyball). However, there are still plenty of names expected to play a role in NBC’s Olympic coverage who haven’t officially been announced yet, such as new NBC addition Mike Tirico. We’ll have to wait and see where those ones wind up.

[NBC Sports Group Press Box]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

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