Details about NBC’s 2024 Paris Olympics plans continue to come out. Last month, the network announced that Mike Tirico would again host primetime coverage as well as a national afternoon show, with Rebecca Lowe, Craig Melvin, Ahmad Fareed, and Damon Hack also hosting daytime coverage. They also announced roles for long-time Olympics broadcasters Mary Carillo, Andrea Joyce, and Jimmy Roberts. And now, Richard Deitsch of The Athletic reported Tuesday that Maria Taylor is set to host their late-night coverage, as well as play a major Opening Ceremonies role:
NEWS: @MariaTaylor will host NBC’s Paris Olympics late-night coverage. She’ll also have one of the coolest assignments in Olympics history — reporting on a boat going down the River Seine during the Opening Ceremony.
Story ⤵️https://t.co/nteKwUOrLe
— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) June 4, 2024
Deitsch writes that the move (which NBC is expected to officially announce later Tuesday) will see Taylor hosting on both broadcast NBC and streaming service Peacock, and that her Opening Ceremonies role will see her on Team USA’s boat. (The Opening Ceremonies will have athletes from all countries in a four-mile boat parade.) Taylor told him she’s thrilled for that role, saying “When it became official I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is going to be something I could have never imagined or dreamed of doing.'”
But Taylor also said she’s incredibly excited about her Olympics work in general. She’ll be appearing live from various venues across Paris for the late-night show to try and “make the city a central character,” and will feature significant guests. She’s also able to bring her son (Roman Ryan Taylor Hemphill, born in December) along for these Games. And she credits the last Olympics (stylized the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, it actually took place in the summer of 2021 due to COVID-19) as reviving her interest in broadcasting after her painful exit from ESPN, with it even marking her first on-air event for NBC. Here’s what she told Deitsch on that front:
“When my departure from ESPN happened, I was depleted, exhausted, in a lot of ways torn down,” Taylor said. “I feel like the Olympics have restored me. Being in Tokyo and being a part of the opening ceremony there, it just revitalized my passion (for) working in sports broadcasting. I feel like I owe a lot to the athletes and the Olympics in general because of what that event now means to me and what it represents. It breathed a lot of life back into me.
“When I started in broadcasting, my goal was to be at the women’s volleyball national championships and maybe host the women’s basketball tournament. Now you’re telling me that I get to host an Olympics where Mike Tirico and Bob Costas have stood in and talked about these things. You could tell me that I was going to do this under a rock at 2 a.m. and I’d be like, ‘I’m hosting the Olympics!’ I didn’t know how much it would mean to me three years ago and now I even get to bring my baby to cover the Games.”
It’s interesting to hear Taylor speak about how much the Olympics means to her. And it’s notable to see her in a major role like this, with the late-night coverage often a key part of Olympics broadcasts. Taylor has been wearing a lot of hats at NBC, and may have more still to come if they do indeed get NBA rights, but this one seems particularly important to her. We’ll see what she does with it.
