NBC Sports Elevates Molly Solomon to Role of Executive Producer and President, NBC Olympics Production

NBC Sports Elevates Molly Solomon to Role of Executive Producer and President, NBC Olympics Production Additionally, Solomon retains responsibilities as Executive Producer, GOLF Channel By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital

Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - 11:04 am

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On Tuesday, NBC Sports Group named industry veteran Molly Solomon as its new Executive Producer and President, NBC Olympics Production, taking over the top post vacated by Jim Bell earlier this month. In the position, Solomon oversees the entire day-to-day editorial production of NBC Olympics' coverage, beginning with this summer's Games in Tokyo, Japan.

Molly Solomon was named Executive Producer and President, NBC Olympics Production.

I have three loves in my professional life; it's sports television, the Olympics and golf, so I feel really very fortunate to be able to combine them, Solomon said during an introductory media conference call hosted by NBS Sports on Tuesday. So thank you to [NBC Sports Group president] Pete Bevacqua and NBCUniversal Broadcast, Cable, Sports and News Chairman Mark [Lazarus] for trusting me with this expanded role to continue in golf while also adding the Olympics.

I think I can bring a uniqueness to the job, she added. My mantra as a producer is let's innovate and search for fresh ways to tell the athlete stories. So whenever I go into a new project, a new show, I always ask the question to my team, how do we enrich the experience for the viewer? The time zone [in Tokyo] is advantageous for us, so how can we enliven what we're doing, particularly in primetime, which is still the anchor of our coverage.

An 11-time Emmy Award winner and one of the modern behind-the-scenes greats of live sports television, Solomon has overseen production at the GOLF Channel since 2012 but is certainly no stranger to the Olympics, having worked 10 prior Games, including overseeing NBC's production of golf's Olympic return in Rio in 2016, serving as producer for figure skating at Vancouver in 2010, and producing the Opening Ceremony and the nightly primetime show at London in 2012.

We've assembled a great team over these years, says NBC Olympics President Gary Zenkel, and we are thrilled that [Molly] will be rejoining us after a short absence down at the Golf Channel. She brings an amazing amount of energy, a great deal of creativity, and we have this incredibly ambitious plan leading into what should be one of the great Olympics of our careers. To have Molly plug in and apply not just her energy but some of her incredible creativity to how we present the Olympics is really a privilege for us, and it's really exciting for the team.

With only approximately 35 weeks to go until the opening of the Tokyo Olympics this summer, one can expect that a substantial of NBC Olympics' plans are already in place, especially when it comes to many of the operational logistics in place. However, the time remaining does give Solomon the opportunity to implement her own plan for the creative and the storytelling of these upcoming Olympics.

We obviously are well down the road with our plans and our insight, says Bevacqua. But the good news is we are still roughly nine months away, and there will be plenty of time for Molly to be brought up to speed and to put her fingerprints on what the Olympics will look like in Tokyo.

As Molly knows because she's been involved in 10 of these we begin planning years out, and so the plan is ambitious, says Zenkel. We're many networks, but as Pete said, and I echo the same thought, there is certainly an opportunity as we hone our specific production plans for Molly to infuse her own take on production plans, on programming plans, and I know the team is very excited to have her join the discussion and help us potentially lead us to places we haven't yet thought about.

In addition to this new role with NBC Olympics, Solomon will retain he responcbilities overseeing production of the GOLF Channel. Her Olympics duties also include editorial leadership for the Olympic Channel in the US, a network she says she has grown to love since it launched back in 2016.

To me as an Olympic fan, it's been a great haven, a place I go, says Solomon. It's a lot like Golf Channel where I work, which superserves the niche sports fan, so you get to go find what you want. They've also done amazing social media and documentaries. It really is a companion to what we do every two years, but it also keeps telling these stories in between Olympics, which I think is vital to keep these story lines alive, to show these world championships. So to me, it's a great companion to everything we're doing.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2019/11/20/nbc-sports-elevates-molly-solom...
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