NBC sportscasters have a busy February ahead of them as the network will host both the Super Bowl and the 2018 Winter Olympics. With the Winter Games beginning just four days after the Super Bowl, NBC is planning to promote its coverage of the festivities in a big way during the big game. Fred Gaudelli is the executive producer of Thursday Night Football, Sunday Night Football, and the Super Bowl telecast, and he detailed exactly how the production team would promote the Olympics while speaking at the TCA winter press tour:
We'll be introducing some of the athletes, some of the big stories from Pyeongchang into our Super Bowl programming. So we're going to take advantage of this huge platform on Super Bowl Sunday and kind of whet people's appetites for the stories, for the beautiful scenery of South Korea, and get them ready for that total Olympic experience.
So while Americans chow down on snacks, watch funny commercials and Justin Timberlake perform, and maybe enjoy a little football, NBC is going to pepper in some coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. This means sports enthusiasts will likely get a chance to learn about some of the lesser-mentioned stars of the Olympics and have some reason to get invested before the games start later that week on Friday, February 9. Additionally, viewers will get to see some picturesque views of Pyeongchang, South Korea, which might just be slightly prettier than Minnesota's U.S. Bank Stadium.
Fred Gaudelli and the rest of NBC appear intent on making sure audiences who tune in for the Super Bowl are aware there are other big games on the horizon following the conclusion of the NFL season. They're right in doing so, as while the Super Bowl is a big money maker for the network that hosts the event, hosting the Winter Olympics could be more lucrative in the long run. Of course, the Winter Olympics run much longer than the Super Bowl, which might be why NBC expects ad revenue for the 2018 Winter Olympics to be double the ad revenue of last year's Super Bowl, which came in at $500 million for Fox. Given the number of This Is Us-type shows the network could produce with that kind of money, it's unsurprising Gaudelli said this:
[T]he Olympics is really a unique opportunity. We're going to spend a lot of Super Bowl Sunday weaving the Olympics into our telecast. Mike Tirico, who is our primetime host, who has also hosted "Football Night in America" this year, won't be at the Super Bowl. He will be in Pyeongchang, but he'll have a presence in our pregame show.
The Super Bowl is scheduled to air on NBC Sunday, February 4 with the 2018 Winter Olympics kicking off later that week on Friday, February 9. For other great television shows new or returning to television in the coming weeks, visit our midseason premiere guide.
