Nightshift Sports Rio: What It Takes To Cover The Olympics

The Olympics
A snapshot of NBC’s efforts/logistics in covering the 2016 Rio Olympics, provided by NBC. Absolutely Amazing.

STAMFORD, CONN.—NBC Sports has released some stats related to its coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro beginning on Friday:

1.1 billion+ Dollars generated in national ad sales.

120,000 Tons of equipment sent to Rio.

75,000 Square feet of space inside the NBC Olympics compound in the International Broadcast Center in Rio.

40,000 Meters of fiber optic cable in the NBC Olympics compound in Rio.

10,500 Approximate number of athletes competing in the Rio Games.

6,755 Hours of coverage across 11 NBCUniversal platforms.

4,500+ Hours of live streaming coverage.

2,000+ Employees on-site in Rio.

2750 Color broadcast monitors in Rio.

1,800Terabytes of video disk storage.

1,000+Employees working in NBC Sports Group’s International Broadcast

Center in Stamford, Conn.

450 Total cameras used for the OBS host feed.

250 Total cameras used for NBC Olympics coverage (including OBS, venue and studio).

132 HD feeds coming in from Rio.

52 Years since NBC‘s first broadcast of the Olympic Games (1964 Tokyo Games).

51 Edit suites located in the NBC Olympics compound in the International Broadcast Center in Rio.

28 Sports featured, comprising 306 medal events.

18 Studios and control rooms (two studios and two control rooms in Rio; six studios and eight control rooms in Stamford).

8 Number of tiers in the NBC Olympics marketing campaign, which generates billions of impressions and reaches every American dozens of times. 

2 Apps available for fans following the games (NBC Sports and NBC Olympics Highlights and Results).

2 Each of the previous two Summer Olympics have set the record for the most-watched event in U.S. television history (London 217 million; Beijing 215 million).

1 Number of hours Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is ahead of the East coast. Making the 2016 Rio Games the most live Olympics ever.

0 Number of times Brazil has hosted the Olympics.

Nightshift Rio Sports: Tuesday Clickpak

The Olympics

 
A clickpak of relevant and interesting articles about the Rio Olympics.
How to Swim like Phelps and Ledecky (Source: Wired.com)
Learning from Sochi: How the NY Times Covers Oympics (Source: Storybench)
Smacking Down the Drug Cheats (Source: New York Times)
Betting on the Olympics? (Source: Bloomberg)

Nightshift Sports Rio Preview: Mariel Zagunis

The Olympics
Fencing is an old, old sport. It’s possible that you might not know anyone that actually knows how to fence, which is all the more reason why you should watch Mariel Zagunis of the U.S. Olympic Fencing team. The sport is lightning quick and is more of a mind game than a physical one, although quick reflexes are certainly an occupational necessity. Short profile of Zagunis by Sports Illustrated, who made the embed available through YouTube (thanks guys).

Nightshift Sports Rio Preview: Marti Mallow

The Olympics
Athletic competition in judo is nothing like the staged, tightly choreographed physical dances you see in action films. It’s a lot more tactical and mistakes are not allowed–they take you right out of the match. Here’s U.S. Olympic Judo team member Marti Mallow, in a profile produced by Sports Illustrated (embed via YouTube).

Nightshift Sports Rio Preview: The Shooters

The Olympics
The Summer Olympics are one of the world’s great athletic and cultural events. There will be a nation’s worth of new media and television coverage at the Rio Olympics, but don’t forget to look at/for the very great work that is being done by still photographers at the Olympics.
 

One of the major engines driving photographic coverage of the 2016 Rio Olympics is Getty Images. We love Getty Images at this site, for all the right reasons: they have an unmatched inventory of photos from all eras and of all types, they’re easy to work with, and they share. They make it easy to always get the right image for the (very eclectic) posts that we run. Getty is going all in on the 2016 Olympics and we will be seeing still photography magic this year.  Watch the site for continuing galleries of great photography from the Olympics, as well as lots of good information on the techniques and mind-set it takes to photograph the Olympics.
The Fine Print: Image above from (who else) Getty Images, used by permission. Thanks guys, always, for sharing.