Live From Paris 2024: NBC Olympics Set for Historic Opening Ceremony

Unilateral coverage builds on impressive OBS production as NBC dives deep into Team USA coverage

Tonight’s 2024 Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony promises to be particularly special. It will take place on the Seine, with more than 10,000 athletes aboard a flotilla that will sail down the river and culminate with the athletes disembarking near the Eiffel Tower for the official opening of the Games. For NBC Olympics, the goal is to make sure viewers at home are as close to the ceremony, and to Team USA, as possible.

“It has the potential to be one of the best events we’ve seen in a long time between the entertainment and things like that,” says Chris Connolly, VP, venue technology and engineering, NBC Olympics. “It’s going to be a spectacle that is going to be pretty amazing.”

OBS has deployed a wired camera from the Eiffel Tower to the Place du Trocadéro, and NBC Olympics will be able to control it for three hours a day during its primetime coverage.

OBS will provide NBC with the main production that, as with all Opening Ceremonies, will be highly orchestrated. Besides the parade of athletes, there are the artistic performances, speeches, and, of course, lighting of the Olympic Flame that have become a major part of every Games.

“What we’ve done throughout this whole process is to find ways to better highlight USA,” says Connolly. “We have a full RF network that we’ve deployed along the Seine with the help of OBS and the fiber that they have deployed. That network allows us to have a few cameras on the boat that has the Team USA athletes.”

Historically, the parade of athletes has provided the team at NBC Olympics only a few minutes to capture the excitement of the athletes: Greece leads the parade into a stadium, and each team has its moment in the spotlight. But tonight’s spotlight will last much longer: each team will sail more than 3 miles down the Seine. The Austerlitz Bridge next to the Jardin des Plantes is the starting point for the flotilla, which will continue west for 6 km, passing under historic bridges and by iconic landmarks — Notre-Dame cathedral, the Louvre — and some Games venues, including the Esplanade des Invalides and the Grand Palais.

“As the procession is going along, we’ll be checking with the [Team USA] boat and seeing what the athletes are doing,” says Connolly. “We will have people trying to capture the journey of the athletes through their bus ride, getting on the boat, their trip on the boat, down the river, and then highlighting all of the different entertainment.”

The NBC Olympics primetime set is nestled nicely against the Palais de Chailot.

Helping in those efforts will be eight cameras on bridges and three cameras on boats. One reporter will also be on the Team USA boat. Signals will be sent via RF provided by EMG Connectivity or LiveU as a backup path (taking no chances, NBC will also have an additional uplink device to provide additional, bonded-cellular support as well as Starlink antennas). Those signals (as well as OBS camera splits) are all brought to an NEP truck in the compound near the Trocadéro and then sent to NBC’s facility in Stamford, CT, for final production.

“We’ll have eight RF receive sites along the Seine,” says Connolly. “The two production trucks are NEP Caspian and NEP Albiorix. After the Opening Ceremony, both will head to Stade de France, where they will be used for our athletics coverage.”

The Opening Ceremony will end at the Place du Trocadéro, which is also where the primetime and Today show sets are located, along with a third, indoor set in case the weather takes a turn. Late-night coverage will be hosted from a studio on the second floor of a three-story OBS studio complex overlooking the Eiffel Tower. A small NEP flypack is located inside the tower and is tied to an NEP van where camera shading is done. All studio signals are sent via Media Links to Stamford, where the various shows are cut.

During the next two weeks the Eiffel Tower will be at the center of broadcast efforts around the globe.

One of the technical highlights at the Trocadéro is a cablecam that runs from the Eiffel Tower across the Seine to the Palais du Trocadéro. “It was installed for the Opening Ceremony,” Connolly notes, “but we will have control of it for three hours a day during our primetime production.”

Opening Ceremony coverage will be hosted by Olympics primetime host Mike Tirico, with Emmy Award-winning talk-show host and Grammy Award–winning artist Kelly Clarkson and Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback and two-time Super Bowl champion Peyton Manning alongside, and will feature NBC Sports’ Maria Taylor on the Team USA boat, and Today show hosts Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb on a bridge along the route. Opening Ceremony reporters include Melissa Stark and Andrea Joyce, who will report from the red carpet.