Veteran TV executive Molly Solomon will lead NBC’s Olympics coverage, starting with the 2020 Tokyo Games, after being promoted to executive president and producer of the network’s Olympics unit.
The first woman to be hired as an executive producer for a network sports division, Solomon succeeds Jim Bell, who announced earlier this month that he was leaving NBC Sports. She will continue to be executive producer at the Golf Channel, a position she has held since 2012.
Solomon, who begins her new role immediately, has extensive history with the network’s Olympic coverage. She has worked at 10 Winter and Summer Games, beginning as a network researcher to coordinating producer from 2006-12. She also oversaw the network’s production of golf’s return to the Olympics in Rio in 2016.
NBC Sports Group president Pete Bevacqua said: “We are excited to put oversight of our Olympic presentation into her exceptionally-qualified hands, and are especially proud to see a long-time and well-liked member of our NBC team return to her roots.”
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics will be the last covered by NBC’s $4.38bn (€3.88bn) rights agreement, which has spanned four games from Sochi 2014 onwards. NBC’s new $7.75bn Olympics rights deal, which runs from 2022 to 2032, will begin with the 2022 winter Olympics in Beijing.