Paris 2024: As Closing Ceremony Nears, NBC Sports' Darryl Jefferson Dives Deeper Into Stamford At-Home Production Daytime coverage and primetime storytelling on TV and a robust streaming effort are a hit with fans By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, August 8, 2024 - 3:22 pm
Print This Story
With just a few days left in the Paris 2024 festivities, NBC Sports' Olympics dual production strategy - focusing on live coverage during the day and deeper storytelling during primetime - can be officially deemed a hit with viewers. Whether it's live daytime coverage streaming on Peacock and airing on NBCU's television networks or the packaged primetime show on NBC and USA each night, the numbers have been impressive. Throw in the massive success of Gold Zone on Peacock, and the NBC Sports Group production, operations, and engineering teams will have plenty to be proud of come the Closing Ceremony on Sunday.
NBCUniversal's nightly Paris Olympics show (8-11 p.m. ET) has dominated primetime, topping 13 million viewers each night across NBC and USA Network, according to Nielsen. In addition, the show accounts for 12 of the 19 most-watched primetime shows in 2024, excluding NFL. Beginning with the Opening Ceremony, NBCUniversal has a posted 12-day Total Audience Delivery average of 32.2 million viewers across the combined live Paris Prime (2-5 p.m. ET) and U.S. primetime (8-11 p.m. ET/PT) time periods - up 77% from Tokyo (18.2 million). In addition, as of Wednesday morning, NBCUniversal's streaming of Paris 2024 - led by Peacock - has surpassed all prior Olympics combined (16.8 billion minutes total for previous Summer and Winter Games).
With just three days until the Closing Ceremony in Paris, SVG sat down with Darryl Jefferson, SVP, engineering and technology, NBC Sports and Olympics, to discuss the dual focus on daytime and primetime, how the Stamford, CT, broadcast center has evolved since the Tokyo and Beijing Games, the complicated transmission scheme connecting Paris and Stamford, NBC's Gold Zone success, and what technologies he's most excited about both for Paris and in the future.
Darryl Jefferson has been a member of NBC Sports' Olympics team for every Games since Beijing 2008.
Let's start with the basics. What has been the most exciting aspect of the Paris Games for you as we head into the closing weekend?
I think the fact that we're truly presenting these games live in a way that we've never done before is incredibly exciting, but we're also continuing to deliver on that deeper storytelling that NBC is known for at the Olympics and across all our [properties]. We're not holding anything back for primetime [as was done with] old-school television. Here, we're letting it rip during the day with tons of live sports on Peacock and our TV networks. And then the best of the best is curated and packaged for primetime on NBC, with more analysis and more behind-the-scenes [content]. Viewers seem to really be enjoying that formula.
Can you speak to how the Stamford facility has grown and evolved since the Toyko 2020 and Beijing 2022 Games?
We have built so much here in Stamford over the years, so it's pretty amazing to see how far we've come. We moved into the plant in the latter part of 2011, then took real residence in 2012 just after the London Olympics, and it has grown and grown from there. During COVID, we learned so much about how we could effectively do remote production and how we could [better utilize] resources and real estate that we already had in the building for the Olympics.
NBC Sports' Stamford, CT, broadcast center is producing the Paris 2024 Olympics.
As an example, we had a number of mobile units in our parking lot during Tokyo and Beijing to augment what we had in the building. But we've done so much construction here in the last [few years] that we actually have only one mobile unit here [for Paris 2024] despite its being significantly larger. Everything else is using internal resources that we've built, rebuilt, rethought, or reimagined [over the past two years]. Why that makes sense is that we're able to cover so many more sports concurrently because we're able to shift resources that are already in the building.
Now we can have a team onsite with local reporters or LiveU crews or similar types of things on the frontend and tcan add expert commentary or analysis or a control room to integrate the show here [in Stamford]. Also, someone can be in the same chair and pivot from one sport to the next in a remote environment. It has proved to be a really good formula for us.
How do you see these facility enhancements benefiting NBC Sports beyond the Olympics?
It's going to be a huge leg up. These are things that we can use year-round when we do other sports. We have done this all in a sustainable way so that we can do more sports and events year-round. We built things that will be able to help us do an even larger volume of content than we're already doing. That is going to serve us very well and give us a lot more bandwidth to bring on new [properties], like our [expanded] Big Ten deal, or - and I'm excited to finally publicly be able to say - bring the NBA back to NBC in 2025.
How are you bringing all the feeds from Paris into Stamford?
We have what we lovingly call the subway map, illustrating all the different services and individual video paths coming back to Stamford, and it's bigger than ever. We have a copy of the [subway map] from the Torino 2006 Games, and it looks miniature compared with this year's [transmission scheme]. That shows just how much everything has grown.
The heart of NBC Sports' Olympics broadcast operations in Stamford, CT
I would say one of the big headlines is the core [contribution network] for Tokyo was m
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
20/11/2025
LONDON The winners of the Rise Awards 2025, which recognize women and companies whose achievements have stood out in the media technology industry, have been an...
20/11/2025
SANTA MONICA & NEW YORK Lionsgate's Worldwide Television Distribution Group and Debmar-Mercury have launched MovieSphere Gold in more than 30 million homes....
20/11/2025
ALAMEDA, Calif. Clear-Com has introduced its four-channel HelixNet beltpack, a next-generation advancement of its widely used two-channel model, and anticipates...
20/11/2025
NEW PROVIDENCE, N.J. Streaming technology and services provider Kiswe has launched Kiswe Core, a next-generation cloud-based platform designed to simplify the s...
20/11/2025
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. Dolby Laboratories has signed on as an official signature partner of the Bay Area Host Committee (BAHC) for the 2026 Super Bowl and the we...
20/11/2025
STUTTGART, Germany 3 Screen Solutions (3SS) has announced that the Canadian multiservice operator Telus has launched its Telus TV+ entertainment platform on Sam...
20/11/2025
Major League Baseball has announced deals with ESPN, NBCUniversal and Netflix covering 2026-2028 that make ESPN the exclusive rightsholder of MLB.TV, see regula...
20/11/2025
Berklee Presents Holiday Extravaganza: Duke Ellingtons The Nutcracker Suite and ...
19/11/2025
Sphere Sound Kicks Up Its Heels at Radio City Music HallUltra-immersive system from the singular Las Vegas venue is also ready for sportsBy Dan Daley, Audio Edi...
19/11/2025
The Future of Stadium and Arena Video Control Rooms: Tech Leaders Talk 4K, IP, a...
19/11/2025
One Year at Intuit Dome: Walking Through the Stunning Arena's Advanced Video...
19/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: IMG's Francois Westcombe Goes Inside IMG's Annual Digital ...
19/11/2025
Inside Brighton & Hove Albion's fan-first media machine By George Bevir
Tuesday, November 18, 2025 - 10:10
Print This Story
Brighton & Hove Albion'...
19/11/2025
Rock Chalk Rebuild, Part 1: Kansas Athletics Brings New Production Power to Rebu...
19/11/2025
Rock Chalk Rebuild, Part 2: A Pro's Guide to Kansas Athletics' New Video...
19/11/2025
MLB Media Rights Shakeup: NBC Inks Three-Year Deal for Sunday Night Baseball, Pe...
19/11/2025
Rohan Parashuram Kanawade attends the premiere of Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival at Egyptian Theatre on January 26, 2025, in Pa...
19/11/2025
Awards season is heating up, and the International Documentary Association just ...
19/11/2025
Aerojet Rocketdyne President Ken Bedingfield and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders were joined by state and local officials to celebrate the groundbreaking o...
19/11/2025
L3Harris and PentenAmio formalise their teaming agreement at MilCIS 2025, streng...
19/11/2025
Calrec gives Phoenix Broadcast Solutions its full support in strategic multi-year enterprise partnership New Singapore OB company invests in Calrec technology f...
19/11/2025
October brings a larger audience in front of TV screens. The cooler autumn weather and the continuation of new programming schedules brought increases in both t...
19/11/2025
IRVING, Texas Nexstar Media Group and Tegna filed applications on Nov. 18 with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking its consent to transfer broad...
19/11/2025
Vitec has acquired Datapath, a developer of real-time video processing for large-scale video walls, AVoIP content distribution and KVM control in mission-critic...
19/11/2025
NEVADA CITY, Calif. Telestream has introduced ARGUS Version 2.3, which introduces Live Look, a feature that lets operators inspect live and on-demand streams vi...
19/11/2025
STAMFORD, Conn. and NEW YORK Charter Communications, Inc. has announced a major deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) that establishes AWS as one of Charters stra...
19/11/2025
TOKYO Atomos has announced a major firmware update that brings integrated camera control to the Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX its new CFexpress-based monitor-recor...
19/11/2025
Berklee's Signature Series Reimagines the Musical and Visual Artistry of Col...
19/11/2025
PlayBox Neo departed the NAB Show New York 2025 on a high note. The company's all-new PlayBox Neo Suite made a splash on the show floor, drawing strong inte...
19/11/2025
AAVBR (American Audio Visual Baton Rouge), a leading full-service event production company serving Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region, has enhanced its product...
19/11/2025
In its mission to deliver live event services combining advanced engineering with a creative approach to captivating live sports and entertainment experiences, ...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK Short-form vertical video has exploded across platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, but a new survey commissioned by Media.net, a provider of c...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK YES Network, the regional sports network home of the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets, and CAMB.AI have struck a partnership they said will leverage ...
19/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has issued detailed guidance on filings that were disrupted by the government shutdown. While many of those fil...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK The popularity of NFL games is largely responsible for continued seasonal momentum in TV viewership into October (measured Sept. 29-Oct. 26), according...
19/11/2025
DirecTV has announced that its MyFree DirecTV streaming service has added seven new channels. Those include four sports services, NBA FAST, Red Bull TV, DAZN Ri...
19/11/2025
SURREY, U.K. Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) has launched Flair Bridge, a compact device that transforms how operators control the company's motion-contr...
19/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission, which is continuing to rapidly ramp up its operations after the end of the federal government shutdown, has se...
19/11/2025
IRVING, Texas Nexstar Media Group and Tegna filed applications on Nov. 18 with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking its consent to transfer broad...
19/11/2025
Martin Freeman, Jessie Buckley, Wu-Tang Clan's Raekwon, Eddie the Eagle and ...
19/11/2025
Rohde & Schwarz collaborates with Broadcom to enable testing and validation of n...
19/11/2025
Back to All News
Innato, starring Imanol Arias and Elena Anaya, arrives on Netf...
19/11/2025
Back to All News
Guillermo del Toro Sits Down With Troll 2 Director Roar Uthaug...
19/11/2025
Some projects feel monumental from the moment the first phone call comes in. When BCE, the host broadcaster appointed to coordinate the national coverage, asked...
19/11/2025
November 19 2025, 08:00 (PST) BAY AREA HOST COMMITTEE AND DOLBY PARTNER TO DELIVER IMMERSIVE FAN EXPERIENCES
During the Week of Football's Biggest Game...
19/11/2025
Michael D. Higgins: Ireland's Ninth President features RT Archives footage and interviews across seven decades
Watch Wednesday 19 November at 9:35pm on RT...
19/11/2025
Scripps Research scientists receive $1.1 million to advance AI modeling for HIV vaccine development New AI system helps scientists rapidly pinpoint the most pro...
18/11/2025
Independent media across Central America are operating under intensifying financial pressure, yet there is a clear appetite for models that can sustain both ind...
Paris 2024: As Closing Ceremony Nears, NBC Sports' Darryl Jefferson Dives Deeper Into Stamford At-Home Production Daytime coverage and primetime storytelling on TV and a robust streaming effort are a hit with fans By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. 
