He hasn’t been at the Olympics since 2000 in Sydney. But coming in August, it appears Marv Albert will be back calling basketball at the Rio Olympics for NBC. The New York Daily News reports that he’ll be back with the Peacock on the Olympics after a 16-year absence. Albert called the original USA Dream Team gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Games and again at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. His Olympic experience also extends to boxing which he called in Seoul in 1988 and again in Sydney in 2000.
For Albert who returned to NBC last year to call Premier Boxing Champions, he’ll now come full circle as he’ll be back calling basketball on the Peacock. Albert who has worked for TNT since NBC lost the NBA will be on the network for 17 days doing the play-by-play on the sport he does best.
Here’s Marv calling the 1992 basketball gold medal game between the Dream Team and Croatia. His partner was the Czar of the Telestrator, Mike Fratello.
http://youtu.be/5IQ1xrD2P0g
Here are the final moments of the 1996 gold medal game between the US and Yugoslavia which Marv called with Bill Walton:
In the Olympiads following the Atlanta games, NBC utilized Mike Breen and Doug Collins for 2000, 2004 in Athens and 2008 in Beijing. Bob Fitzgerald of Comcast SportsNet Bay Area was tapped by NBC to join Collins in 2012. Fitzgerald’s clain to fame in 2012 came for confusing actor Jesse Eisenberg for Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
The Daily News story said Albert called basketball in Athens for NBC, but we have video of Breen and Collins calling the USA-Argentina semifinal game.
NBC has not commented on nor confirmed the Daily News story.
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