Behind the Scenes of the NBC Paris Olympics Show

Sitting at the desk in his dressing room on July 30, Scott Hanson was in full prep mode, furiously scribbling notes, plucking out key sports, athletes and moments that he wanted to feature when he went on the air to host Gold Zone in about an hour and a half.

Hanson was surrounded by screens. A TV on the wall, a laptop to his right, and an iPad in front of him, where a live video feed showed Simone Biles competing on the vault.

“Her stuff is way more advanced than everyone else, right? And the U.S. is going to have such a lead [in the women’s team gymnastics event], we think,” Hanson said as Biles completed her routine, reciting a flurry of facts as he browsed a printed copy of NBC‘s “Daily Olympian,” a sort of in-house newspaper for NBC Sports employees working out of the company’s Stamford, Connecticut headquarters during the games.

But Hanson was particularly excited about what could happen right after he was set to take over hosting duties on Gold Zone, the Peacock studio show that has become a breakout for NBC during the Paris Games.

“The U.S. ends on the floor exercise, so Simone Biles could be the last one to go on floor exercise for the gold medal,” he said. “It’s gonna be fantastic.”

A couple hours later, Hanson was in the Gold Zone studio, quizzing his researcher Kirk Meyer about the total number of medals that Biles and the team would have if they win gold.

“Are those happy tears?” asked Andrew Siciliano, another Gold Zone host, after Jordan Chiles finished her routine (they were).

Finally it was Biles’ turn on the floor, and the studio was silent until the score came in at a 14.666, guaranteeing a team gold medal for the U.S.

“How can you not get chills?” one production crew member said to a colleague as Biles embraced her teammates. As the gymnasts grabbed an American flag and stood on the mat for a photo, Hanson addressed the Gold Zone viewers, calling the image a “defining moment” of the 2024 games.

NBCUniversal has been throwing everything it has at the 2024 Paris Olympics, supplementing its traditional broadcast coverage with a flurry of streaming options, including shows hosted by Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson, Alex Cooper, and others. Every event is streaming live, a first for Peacock.

And yet, it is Gold Zone that seems to have emerged as a viewer favorite. Employing the “whip-around” format popularized by the NFL RedZone (which also counts Hanson and Siciliano as hosts), Gold Zone sees the studio hosts jumping from event to event, gold medal to gold medal, trying to capture only the most exciting, unexpected or important moments, before moving on the next.

“I think people really understood quickly what they were gonna get when they came there, and that resonated really well [with viewers],” NBC Sports president Rick Cordella says, adding that live coverage of the women’s gymnastics team final averaged nearly 13 million viewers on NBC and Peacock. Peacock is “regularly hitting five million viewers” on competition days, he adds, citing Gold Zone as one of the main draws.

The program, which streams on Peacock from 7 a.m. through 5 p.m. ET every day, has Hanson, Siciliano, Matt Iseman and Jac Collinsworth as hosts, with each bringing a different sensibility to their hours behind the desk.

“It’s a four hour shot of adrenaline,” Collinsworth says, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter alongside Iseman after their shift is over. “And I think we feel that every day. It’s just one thing after another and it just hits you from directions you don’t even know.”

And with as many as 40 events happening simultaneously during the Olympics, it is incumbent on the hosts — and their production team — to lead viewers through what is happening.

“You’re seeing moment after moment. The Olympics are all about moments,” Iseman adds. “And with the Gold Zone you get to catch those moments.”

That includes the obvious — like Biles leading the gymnastics team to gold, or what could be Rafael Nadal’s final singles tennis match — but also the completely unexpected, like a tense shoot-off in archery, or the U.S. women’s rugby sevens team shocking Australia at the very last second to win a bronze medal.

“There wasn’t really a feeling that the Americans were going to win [the rugby match], and that it might even be a little bit of a blowout,” says Amy Rosenfeld, senior VP of Olympic production for NBC Sports.

The U.S. team were major underdogs in the match, but the game remained close, right up until the final play, when the clock hit zero. Siciliano was in the Gold Zone studio when it went down.

“They get the ball and with 12 seconds left, go the length of the field, when [the Australians] were already printing the hats and t-shirts, like it was over, they were celebrating over there on the other sideline,” he recalled in an interview after he left the set. “That was bleeping cool.”

Hours earlier however, in a pre-show production meeting, the crew was preparing for that scenario, however unlikely. Sitting in the “Salt Lake City” conference room, some of the production team were debating how closely to follow the match, noting the improbability of a victory, as well as the history-making consequences if the Americans pulled off the upset.

“They’re playing a team that won by 50 yesterday. They could win,” one attendee said.

“What they’re saying is, do you believe in miracles?” another quipped.

And yet, during the Olympics, miracles can happen. When the American women completed the upset and secured the bronze medal, some cheers and applause erupted in the crowded Gold Zone control room.

“All these producers, all these graphics artists, all these technical directors and everybody that’s in there, at that moment, we’re just fans, we’re just watching the best in the world just go at it,” says Marvin Pittman, a researcher for the show.

After showing some footage of the team basking in their victory, Gold Zone had to move on to gymnastics. That’s what makes the format tick.

“I think my favorite part about it, honestly, is that there is a rundown that we go through in the morning and we don’t even stay close to that rundown,” Collinsworth says.

Gold Zone is, in the words of Rosenfeld, a “producer’s dream.” Quick, split-second decisions helped along by informed research and planning, and an eye for what will pop. And as happy as executives are with the program (Comcast CEO Brian Roberts cited Gold Zone in a CNBC interview Wednesday as an example of the “innovation” they are bringing to the games), it remains a work in progress, even midway through the Olympics.

“I have always said, we’re gonna be different on day one than day three than day five. We’re still evolving,” Rosenfeld says. “I am always hesitant to really dive into social media, however, I did notice there were trends of response from the initial users of Gold Zone, and frankly, there were some really good ideas, which we’ve now implemented because we didn’t know until we all experienced it.”

But pulling it together requires a deep bench. Inside the control room are dozens of screens, split further into small squares of live feeds. Tim Sullivan, a Gold Zone producer, says that they can have as many as 60 feeds being piped in simultaneously from Paris. A pair of ADs choose the “sweet 16,” 16 feeds that will be prepped for use on the program at any given moment. From that group of 16, the producers, researchers, directors and hosts figure out what to line up next, and what to skip (at least for the time being).

Its a setup that at some times more closely resembles an air traffic control tower than a TV control room.

Sometimes Gold Zone will focus on a single sport, letting viewers dip in, and at other times there may be two or four boxes on screen, with viewers getting a taste of multiple sports at once (even if there is only one audio feed at a time).

That could mean going from doubles tennis, where Spain’s Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz were playing team Netherlands, to water polo, where Kenny Albert was providing commentary just a few dozen feet away (as with previous Olympics, NBC built dozens of soundproof booths for commentators and analysts to cover many of the events from Connecticut).

For the production team, that means a heavy lift on the part of the research crew.

“I’m looking for who are the world champions? Who are the multi-medalists in a sport? Who’s the best in the world?” Pittman says. “We want to show you the best of the best regardless of discipline, regardless of country.”

In fact, the research team and other members of the crew have become part of the Gold Zone show itself. During Iseman and Collinsworth’s shift, an audio tech (Iseman called him “Audio Steve”) approached the desk with some details about the sailing competition. Audio Steve, it turns out, used to do some competitive sailing. Iseman used that knowledge to set up the segment, and thanked Steve on-air.

“We’re learning about the sport along with the people [watching], but every day we’re gleaning a little bit more knowledge, and we try to do our best and people online are keeping us honest,” Iseman says.

“We’re not afraid to say ‘Scott, you don’t have to know everything,’” Rosenfeld says. “‘Bring Kirk [his researcher] in, let him be a character in this.’”

Still, Gold Zone is a much more casual production than the daytime, primetime or late night hours that run on NBC. When Iseman and Collinsworth handed off to Siciliano, for example, they tossed him a rugby ball (yes, there is a well-stocked props table in the studio).

But it also requires a flexibility on the part of the host, and a willingness to adapt on the fly.

“We had four golds happening at once and we had them all on the same screen, I think I called it like a golden four box,” Siciliano recalled of one moment.

“It’s amazing what these guys are doing because they all have worked really hard,” Rosenfeld adds. “Do you think they knew in the past what air rifle was? Or the rules for archery? You know, it’s just mind boggling.”

“Part of my job is tapping the United States on the shoulder and saying: ‘folks, we need your attention right now,’” Hanson says. “I need to explain the context of why I’m tapping you on the shoulder, get your attention. If I do my job within the 15- to 30- second interval that I get to set up a sport, then hopefully we have your attention and it adds to your enjoyment the rest of the way.”

And it is done in service of a viewer who may not see these athletes — or even these sports — again until the next Olympics in Los Angeles four years from now.

“The thing that’s beautiful about the Olympics is anything can happen, and we see the thrill of victory, and we’ve seen the agony of defeat, but you just see that it matters,” Iseman says. “It matters to these people and I think that’s why it matters to us.”

And sometimes it shows. On Monday, Hanson cheered so hard watching a gold medal event that he bloodied his hand on the desk, requiring a visit to NBC’s onsite medical center.

“Gold Zone hosting is a contact sport,” Siciliano quips after the injury is brought up.

“There will be four gold medals won when I go on the air in this next hour, we’re going to see those moments,” Hanson says, reclining in his dressing room chair. “You might not be able to ever have a conversation with that person who wins the gold medal, but you see the joy on their face, the emotions being let out after four years of work has led to this moment for these young men and women. That’s the good stuff.”

And for NBC and Peacock, it seems that Gold Zone is increasingly the place where daytime viewers are finding those moments.