Molly Solomon
Executive Producer and President, NBC Olympics
Helming the world of modern sports coverage
Molly Solomon got her start in television at NBC Sports over 30 years ago when she was hired as one of two Olympic researchers for the 1992 Barcelona Games.
In that time, Solomon has nabbed 13 Emmys and a Peabody Award, been named “Woman of the Year” by the nonprofit Women in Sports and Events (WISE), and won the title of Adweek’s Most Powerful Woman in Sports in 2021.
Solomon was named executive producer of the Golf Channel in 2012, a position that made her the first woman to serve in that role for a national sports network. She became the executive producer and president of NBC Olympics Production in 2019.
By Tiffany Corr
Everything has changed in the last 30 years. I was one of only three women in the early 1990s who worked for NBC Sports and Olympics. Now I think my Olympic staff is actually weighted toward women, rather than men.
I’m incredibly proud of the evolution.
It’s important to have female role models because “if you see it, you can be it.” But what equally helped pave my way was having male mentors, or more importantly, “sponsors” who actually did things to open doors and give me opportunities.
I had a boss, Dick Ebersol, who was the chairman of NBC Sports and also the day-to-day leader of the Olympic unit where I came up. I remember him coming to me after the 2008 Olympics and saying, “We’re going to a live time zone in Vancouver in 2010 for the Winter Olympics, and I want you to produce figure skating.”
I was like, “Wait, what?” But I couldn’t say no.
It was the greatest thing he ever did for me, push me to do something different. I try to extend that favor to both men and women, to make sure that people get opportunities. Even when they think they’re not ready, they are.
I’ve appreciated the climb. I remember sitting in the TV truck in 2012 London when I was producing the opening ceremony and the primetime show and thinking, “Wow, I did that.” I went from the bottom to the top.
I’ve never forgotten that it’s the journey that’s the most gratifying.
The Intersection of International News and Sports
I rejoined the Olympics in 2019, six months before what should have been the Tokyo Games before they were postponed to 2021.
Our team went into Tokyo talking about the pandemic and the world coming back together for the very first time. You never want to ignore what’s in front of you, right? Our perspective has always been, if these issues touch the athletes, the staging of the Olympics, and the overall event, then we need to discuss them. The audience knows what’s happening, so to not address it doesn’t make sense.
Once we address these issues, and as news breaks every single day, we weave that into our coverage — but we are covering a sports event.
With the ’22 Beijing Olympics, we prepped the audience and explained why it was a controversial hosting of the games and why the U.S. government didn’t send representatives to the opening ceremony.
Someone asked me, “Once you cover the human rights violations, the diplomatic boycott in 2022, is that the end?” I said, “I don’t know, we have to see how the event unfolds.”
And guess what happened? The Chinese chose a Uyghur athlete to light the cauldron. That in itself was news: The fact that the Chinese government decided to pick this athlete needed to be explained. We didn’t ignore it.
By the end of the games, Ukraine was about to be invaded. We talked about that, but never to the exclusion of sports coverage and being fair to the athletes who were there.
You’re never going to make everyone happy, but this isn’t “Nightly News.” It’s a constant discussion. I’m glad I had the team around me that I did, because I think we really struck the right balance. I felt like the editorial rigor we applied to our coverage was fair, balanced, and served the viewer.
In my mind, if it’s part of the storytelling, then you need to cover it.
What Is a Producer?
Being a producer is like being the conductor of an orchestra. There are all these people covering different parts of the operation. My job is to see the greater group and make sure we’re all contributing, keeping in mind our milestones, deadlines, and how it all comes together.
Every two years, we put together the biggest sports production or entertainment production in the world. In Tokyo ’21, we produced 7,000 hours of content across any number of cable platforms, two broadcast networks (NBC and Telemundo), and streaming.
I’m glad I had the team around me that I did, because I think we really struck the right balance. I felt like the editorial rigor we applied to our coverage was fair, balanced, and served the viewer.
You can work on planning for the Olympics for years. You have a core staff of, say, 40. Then we upsize as we get closer to an army of more than 3,000 people.
You have to lead and get them involved with their hearts and minds. The enormity of the production is such that you’re bringing people in for three weeks, expecting them to perform marathon shifts and work as hard as everyone who’s been planning this for years.
We have an amazing group of returnees, veterans who want to do this every two years. It’s incredibly gratifying. The Beijing cafeteria, which was actually based stateside because of the pandemic, is like a high school reunion. The majority of our on-air announcers and key producers and directors are all here in the U.S. I couldn’t wait to get breakfast every day, because I’d run into someone that I’d worked with 20 years ago.
I’ve worked on all sorts of sports events, and when I talk to people about my job, they don’t ask me about the Super Bowl or the NBA Finals (or even the golf majors). They say, “Wait, you worked on the Olympics?” Then they want to talk about their childhood hero, or what the host cities are like. There’s something unique about an Olympics.