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7's Barcelona 1992 TV schedule kinda went like this, taken from TelevisionAU's website (times AEST). At the time, it was hoped, like with Seven's Sport Director Gary Fenton, that Australian free-to-air TV would still continue to air the Olympic ceremonies after Barcelona with the advent of FOXTEL and Optus. Certainly the case now. Please correct me if I'm wrong on the details:

July 26

4:30-8:30am (?) Opening Ceremony live

1:30-5pm (?) Opening Ceremony replay

5-6pm--highlights

6:30pm-7am--live coverage

July 27-31, August 3-7 (weekday coverage)

7-9am--Games Roundup

12-4pm--highlights

4-6pm--live coverage

7:30pm-7am--live coverage

Saturdays (August 1, 8)

9am-4pm--highlights

4-6pm--live coverage

7pm-7am--live coverage

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TVNZ's ONE intro for the Sydney 2000 Olympics is the only one I know of that utilizes both footage from the official SOBO intro and the TVNZ's coverage sponsors (Holden, Loreal Paris, Kellogg's, Coca-Cola, and Air New Zealand) . At first the TVNZ ONE and ONE Sport intros from the beginning of this video were the ones:

TSN's quick Olympic ID from 1998 leading up to Nagano. Of course, TSN's Olympic broadcasting involvement in Canada continues to this day beyond 2008, especially with the multiple channels TSN now has to utilize the Rio Olympics' coverage with next year

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We've been talking about the Moscow Olympics lately on the ever-popular Ceremonies thread. So why not talk about that here from the broadcast realm, surely that was interesting? As many American Olympic media followers know NBC was planning to broadcast its first Summer Olympics since Tokyo 1964 and overall since Sapporo eight years earlier with around 151 hours of coverage, what was to be America's biggest TV coverage to date after paying $87 million for the rights. To this day, NBC apparently doesn't really like to discuss much of its aborted plans due to the boycott these days after all these years. We know Bryant Gumbel was up to be the main primetime anchor and ceremonies host, something that he eventually get to do with Seoul when NBC reclaimed them and never really looked back. The late Charlie Jones was to be working at Lenin Stadium covering track and field with 1976 Olympic decathlete champ Bruce Jenner and O.J. Simpson (oh, the subsequent tabloid irony of what was to come many years later), who later did it for ABC in LA to likely handle the sprints with Jenner doing the field events. Jones eventually did just that in Seoul, including the infamous 1988 men's 100m final. Frank Shorter would handle the marathon analysis.

Based on what NBC was doing during this time period in its sports department and onward in the 1980s, I can safely assume Dick Enberg and Al McGuire were to cover Olympic basketball because NBC had some NCAA college basketball, including the Final Four back then. Though actually NBC canceled its Olympic coverage plans before naming a primetime host which was supposed to be between Gumbel, Enberg, and NBC Nightly News anchor (and former NBC News Moscow bureau chief) John Chancellor, who surely could provide the news and info about the Soviet Union to the American public. He likely may have joined Gumbel or Enberg covering the ceremonies at Lenin Stadium, if not presented that. Donna de Verona planned to be at the Olympic Complex swimming pool with swimming at nighttime and be among the non-primetime anchors during the daytime before that. She was also to conduct some of that roving reporting during Moscow with Jenner. Don't know what the late Merle Harmon was to cover in Moscow since his background definitely was football. Hmmmm, swimming with de Verona and John Naber? More like Don Criqui's assignment back then at NBC. Cycling? Maybe rowing? I'd say gymnastics. Then again, Enberg would cover that like he did in Seoul. Marv Albert and Dr. Ferdie Pacheco would've been at ringside with NBC had significant boxing coverage back then thanks to Sportsworld. Joel Meyers might have done canoeing and kayaking. Jay Randolph would have to get involved in somewhere. Seamus Malin would deal with, naturally, soccer. Tom Hammond would perhaps tackle diving like in Seoul. As would Jim Simpson in equestrian.

What was interesting in the NBC plans was of the late night segment, where sports that don't get lots of attention by NBC programmers to viewers like team handball, judo, and water polo. The late night segment (10:30pm-12:30am US CST) was to be more light-hearted with a fusion of entertainment with Joe Garagiola bringing the sports with potential hopes of having Hollywood stars who enjoy the Olympics discussing them. David Letterman was to be the major part of this too with everything on tape, connecting all it all.

This is an interesting video from NBC affiliates KTVL and KTVZ showing what Donna de Verona and Joe Garagiola planned to do with NBC's soon-to-be-aborted 150 hours of Moscow Olympics coverage back in January 1980 and their hopes, assuming if the politics weren't going to interfere. Both revealed a general assignment for each along with, interestingly, outtakes of station promo plugging in the end.

Of the 1100 person NBC crew that went to Seoul, 25% of them was originally part of the NBC Moscow 1980 team. The LA Times allows that crew to reflect on what might have been for them just like the athletes feeling shattered and devastated in not going and elated getting a second chance in Seoul, South Korea when NBC regained the US Olympic TV rights unlike many of the 1980 US Olympians. This would be good for now to start with; I'll discuss more on Moscow tomorrow

http://articles.latimes.com/1988-07-17/sports/sp-9755_1_moscow-olympics

i know that Sam Nover was going to do boxing with Dr. Freddie i think Marv might have handled basketball?

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This is more of a request than a find, I don't know if anyone's into WAG (Women's Artistic Gymnastics) but I sure am, however, the competitions I'm looking for, I cannot seem to find, if anyone has any Gymnastics Coverage then please tell me since I've got like a huge To find list.

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My main target are the Gymnastics Events from the 1991 Pan Ams, I did find coverage but I believe it is partial coverage. I'm searching for:

-The Compulsories

-Team Final

-All-Around

-Event Finals

If anyone has any of these and are willing to upload them or help me in my search for them then I will be truly grateful.

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  • 1 month later...

Eh, nevermind, on the hunt for Track & Field Coverage, if you have the Track and Field events from the following meets:

-2010 Commonwealth Games

-2011 World Championships

-2012 Olympics

-2013 World Championships

-2014 Commonwealth Games

-2015 World Relay Championships

Then please PM me! Also, about that US Gymnastics Team Deduction - The US Team was in Bronze Medal position when they moved onto Uneven Bars, the Alternate, Rhonda Faehn, was given the job to move the Springboards away after a Gymnast mounts the Bars, During one routine, Rhonda moved the Board but stayed on the Podium. The Head Judge, Ellen Berger, took a 0.5 Deduction from that routine because of Rhonda being on the Podium, I find that excuse stupid. Also, East Germany, who used Steroids took Bronze, and what annoys me the most is that Berger is East German.

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  • 4 weeks later...

(Sorry, I don't have any of the sports video items you request)

CBC's Seoul 1988 Opening Ceremony montage with that unmistakeable Olympic theme of theirs. Completely forgot the Canadian men marching actually wore white cardigan sweaters with red bowties and red shirts. CBC's Olympic intro here isn't as elaborate as it now is. Just superimposing a flying logo, which was commonplace then:

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TVNZ's ONE intro for the Sydney 2000 Olympics is the only one I know of that utilizes both footage from the official SOBO intro and the TVNZ's coverage sponsors (Holden, Loreal Paris, Kellogg's, Coca-Cola, and Air New Zealand) . At first the TVNZ ONE and ONE Sport intros from the beginning of this video were the ones:

TSN's quick Olympic ID from 1998 leading up to Nagano. Of course, TSN's Olympic broadcasting involvement in Canada continues to this day beyond 2008, especially with the multiple channels TSN now has to utilize the Rio Olympics' coverage with next year

I really like TVNZ's intro for 2000.

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i hoped to ask this question but..

would have ABC in 84 used ESPN in certain cases like for example if ABC had to air local news during the womens volleyball gold medal game? or lets say the basektball final? would have ESPN used ABC's talent for example Bob Beattie or Keith Jackson but use a ESPN person to host like Tom Mees or Bob Ley?


maybe in that case ESPN would have aired ther whole game with ABC dipping in and out(depnding on news obligations) NBC did that with hockey in 2002 i tihnk

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i hoped to ask this question but..

would have ABC in 84 used ESPN in certain cases like for example if ABC had to air local news during the womens volleyball gold medal game? or lets say the basektball final? would have ESPN used ABC's talent for example Bob Beattie or Keith Jackson but use a ESPN person to host like Tom Mees or Bob Ley?

maybe in that case ESPN would have aired ther whole game with ABC dipping in and out(depnding on news obligations) NBC did that with hockey in 2002 i tihnk

ESPN wasn't affiliated with ABC in 1984. They didn't start working together until the Capital Cities merger in the mid 1980s. ABC showed over 180 hours of coverage from Los Angeles. At the time, that was a lot. They were essentially on all day except for a couple of breaks for soap operas and the news. Back then, it wasn't a thought to have cable coverage of the Olympics. So no, none of that would have occurred to anyone in 1984.

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as far as the 84 Olympics.. i remember during one of the ABC 40th year specials they showed Russ Hellickson calling Jeff Blatnick winning the gold medal in wrestling..and of course the interview that followed..also they showed Jack Whitaker and Cathy Rigby calling Mary Lou Retton's gold medal too..cant remember if they had Jim Lampley or Al Michaels on there but they did also show Bob Beattie calling the US mens volleyball team's gold medal..interestingly the clip of Russ Hellickson calling Jeff Blatnick winning the gold medal in wrestling was precced by a clip from the "China Beach" finale..where Dana Delany as McMurphy is shown speaking more into the camera and then
talking more as she walks away and then she says "I
remembered. He said that I would." i remembered at that how that kind of cool for that to happen too it was a interesting kind of segue BTW that special was really good as it showed a lot of great moments from ABC Televison over the years was impressed they featured a lot of Olympics stuff not only from LA but also the 80 olympics and 76 too and 72 that was the first time i saw Mckay's announcment of the hostages being killed and it almost made me cry

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i hope i am not saying anything bad about Dick Ebersol but when he started on the Olympics i remember him talking about the fact that in 1988 "in the midst of that great story of [diver] Greg Louganis on his way to his first gold medal, they were doing split-screen coverage of volleyball," and he also added that "You simply can't do that. You have to tell a story, tell it well and then move on." i had to agree with him back then and i still do although ABC did a good job in LA too with almost everything being live of course they also had to juggle the soaps and the news too

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as far as the 84 Olympics.. i remember during one of the ABC 40th year specials they showed Russ Hellickson calling Jeff Blatnick winning the gold medal in wrestling..and of course the interview that followed..also they showed Jack Whitaker and Cathy Rigby calling Mary Lou Retton's gold medal too..cant remember if they had Jim Lampley or Al Michaels on there but they did also show Bob Beattie calling the US mens volleyball team's gold medal..interestingly the clip of Russ Hellickson calling Jeff Blatnick winning the gold medal in wrestling was preceded by a clip from the "China Beach" finale..where Dana Delany as McMurphy is shown speaking more into the camera and then

talking more as she walks away and then she says "I

remembered. He said that I would." i remembered at that how that kind of cool for that to happen too it was a interesting kind of segue BTW that special was really good as it showed a lot of great moments from ABC Televison over the years was impressed they featured a lot of Olympics stuff not only from LA but also the 80 Olympics and 76 too and 72 that was the first time i saw Mckay's announcement of the hostages being killed and it almost made me cry

to me the medal ceremonies could be quite emotional sometimes..like in LA my Mom can remember some of the gold medalists crying like Tracy Caulkins or Jeff Blatinck or Nancy Hogshead and her teammate.. sometimes what you saw on the medal stand could be quite emotional..i remember how sometimes my Mom would get misty eyed too and ABC to me did a much better job on the medal ceremonies than NBC..no offense to Costas but Jim Mckay to me is the standard on the Olympics..he could wring a moment during the anthem sometimes for all it worth..i remember during one such moment at the wrestling venue Russ Hellickson started to really lose it over Jeff Blatinck crying during the anthem you had to feel for him since he was a expert but who was called on to do play by play when it looked like there was a gold medal at stake there aren't too many guys left like that anymore would could do that i could add Frank Gifford..like Mckay he was classy but he wasn't like Mckay..i remember when Keith Jackson hosted daytime in 88 at Calgary..he wasn't as good as Mckay..none at NBC could top ABC though when you had Gifford doing daytime and Mckay doing primetime those guys were better hosts than either Costas or even Lampley(although Lampley did host in 84 for ABC) to me ABC's coverage in 84 set the standard for the olympics..although NBC is getting there

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to me the medal ceremonies could be quite emotional sometimes..like in LA my Mom can remember some of the gold medalists crying like Tracy Caulkins or Jeff Blatinck or Nancy Hogshead and her teammate.. sometimes what you saw on the medal stand could be quite emotional..i remember how sometimes my Mom would get misty eyed too and ABC to me did a much better job on the medal ceremonies than NBC..no offense to Costas but Jim Mckay to me is the standard on the Olympics..he could wring a moment during the anthem sometimes for all it worth..i remember during one such moment at the wrestling venue Russ Hellickson started to really lose it over Jeff Blatinck crying during the anthem you had to feel for him since he was a expert but who was called on to do play by play when it looked like there was a gold medal at stake there aren't too many guys left like that anymore would could do that i could add Frank Gifford..like Mckay he was classy but he wasn't like Mckay..i remember when Keith Jackson hosted daytime in 88 at Calgary..he wasn't as good as Mckay..none at NBC could top ABC though when you had Gifford doing daytime and Mckay doing primetime those guys were better hosts than either Costas or even Lampley(although Lampley did host in 84 for ABC) to me ABC's coverage in 84 set the standard for the olympics..although NBC is getting there

As much as people remember ABC's `84 coverage of the Olympics as the gold standard, if you're going to remember it (or in this case, if your mom remembers it) in the context of medal ceremonies, Americans won more than 1/3 of all the gold medals awarded in Los Angeles and had more than 4 times as many gold medals as the next country on the medal table. So of course many Americans have fond memories of those Olympics and the TV coverage. Not as much fun when its other countries winning the medals. And for all the bellyaching about NBC's coverage being too biased towards Americans, history tells us more people watch and are into the Olympics when Americans are winning. If you know your history about 1984, you know that people from other countries were upset that ABC so heavily favored American athletes, so they don't have the same memories of that Olympics.

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i have to agree with you-those olympics the us team did so well my Mom got really tried of hearing our national anthem even a few of her friends got tried too! of course i could not blame her because it seemed the Americans did so well it was no joke without the Soviets there she told me stories about the fact when the Soviets withdrew she said that "I tihnk we are going to hear the "Star Spangled Banner" a lot more this year than we did in 80" she was right but sometimes the gold medlaists have worked so hard i dont blame them for crying during the anthem!

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  • 4 weeks later...

ESPN wasn't affiliated with ABC in 1984. They didn't start working together until the Capital Cities merger in the mid 1980s. ABC showed over 180 hours of coverage from Los Angeles. At the time, that was a lot. They were essentially on all day except for a couple of breaks for soap operas and the news. Back then, it wasn't a thought to have cable coverage of the Olympics. So no, none of that would have occurred to anyone in 1984.

At that time, ESPN was owned by Getty Oil and the Rasmussen family. Sure it had NCAA basketball but it also had MISL soccer, the USFL, the NBA, some NHL, and NCAA college football, and the NASL up to that point. But getting the major sports leagues was unattainable because its majority corporate parent company Getty Oil would have to sign off on that and provide the funding. Which it didn't and even lost NCAA football to WTBS and the NHL to USA Network. Then anyway, the NBA, NFL (despite creating the NFL Draft coverage), and Major League Baseball, much less the Olympics, wouldn't have cared much and even refused to broadcast on the rising cable scene even with superstations WTBS and WGN and the genesis of rival sports cable networks like Sportschannel and PRISM. But with ABC/Capital Cities, ESPN could compete financially for TV rights and gave credibility in the sports broadcasting scene. Did show some select Olympic events after Los Angeles under the Spirit Of Excellence.

Oh, here's some really rare ABC Montreal 1976 footage on YouTube hosted by Jim McKay with highlights taken from the halftime of a preseason NFL game, apparently, when the competition pretty much ended. Had to be on July 23 because that's when the men's vault took place and on the first day. There's reports on the late, great Soviet gymnast Nikolai Andrianov on the vault, Keith Jackson and Wyomia Tyus covering the women's long jump from Olympic Stadium focusing on silver medalist Kathy McMillan and East Germans Angela Voigt (gold medalist) and then-world record holder Siegrun Siegl, and eventual bronze medalist from the Soviet Union Lidiya Alfaeva. Interesting to hear the disco music as the ABC Montreal 1976 intro instead of the Bugler's Dream and of discovering Brim being "the Olympic coffee". Did not know that. Do remember the brand well when you "fill it up to the rim with Brim". But those Brim commercials really is cheesy with the actress playing an excited stand attendant serving and drinking Brim coffee to Olympic fans and athletes in that horrible Quebecois accent because "everybody love the Brim". I know many Quebec residents who can speak English quite well with just a trace of a French accent, if not at all. Then there's that reported security breach and oldest Olympian from Monaco, trap shooter Paul Cerutti, getting disqualified for amphetimines as the oldest Olympian:

Good thing NBC had some Seoul 1988 footage to use when the Writers Guild Strike hit the following Tuesday after the Games were over. NBC showed this Seoul 1988 review entitled The Tribute, The Test, and The Triumph, hosted by Bob Costas, who will later host the Olympics on NBC primetime segment ever since. A little different from the NBC video version narrated by Bryant Gumbel. Unfortunately, the first 25 minutes are missing from this, which is why it starts with Nastia Liukin's dad Valeri, who won silver in the men's all-around, and not with an intro. But there's still lots of footage to see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CbiEqrfl5w

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  • 2 weeks later...

A little more throwback for this Thursday when Ten in Australia was "Australia's Olympic Network" during the 1980s before Seven truly did in the next decade. Seven only had the 1980 Summer Olympics and the 1984 Winter Olympics. Nine had Calgary earlier that year. Wonder who did 1980 Winter Olympics? Anyway, Ten's coverage of Seoul was obviously very favorable to Aussies with its time zone difference unlike lots of times when it would held in Europe or North America. Back when it had the infamous glass-like Roman numeral X as its logo and the Olympic logo seemed borrowed from NBC's at the time. Bruce McAveney, Mike Gibson (who incidentally left Nine for Ten partly for this--and had covered Calgary on Nine's Wide World of Sports package months earlier when Australia or any southern hemisphere nation still hadn't yet won Winter Olympic medals), 1984 heptathle gold medalist Glynnis Nunn, Steve Quartermain, Phil Lynch, Ron May, Des Borton, and maybe Debbie Spillane, among others on that 180-person team. Ten provided 250 hours, certainly a lot during that era and the most hours for any Australian TV network all live. Even NBC never claimed that much back then. What I brought forth here is when Ten won the Silver Logie for Most Popular Sports Coverage in 1989 down in Sydney. Those Games were good for Australia with Debbie Flintoff-King (whom McAveney called her gold medal run at the 400m hurdles), Duncan Armstrong (his coach Laurie Lawrence excitedly slapped Quartermain and broke his jaw after the gold medal win), and the Hockeyroos, Australia's men basketball team had their Olympic breakthrough all the way to the bronze medal game. Gibson cracks about Ten possibly testing positive in steroids for its coverage. Network was put on the block by Frank Lowy after the stock market crash impacted his Westfield sometime before. Not long after this though, Ten started to financially sputter and almost died even with an ill-fated TV Australia Channel 10 makeover that went under receivership in 1990:

Bruce McAveney of course since left Ten for Seven, where he remains today and surely he has to be involved with the upcoming Rio Olympics likely at the Joao Havelenge Stadium and perhaps at Maracana Stadium for the ceremonies. This is a promo up to the 00:58 mark I haven't seen before on Seven from its last Summer Olympics coverage back in 2008, though it is similar from the other ones with him at the Great Wall and behind him is the percussion group Red Poppy that provided the Beijing 2008 theme music for Seven and SBS. Theirs was seen as unprecedented. But now back with Rio, its Australian Olympic TV coverage on free-to-air gets even more unprecedented wall-to-wall with digital channels 7TWO and 7 Mate included for a total 900+ hours. The beginning of this clip starts with a promo of the Opening Ceremonies and the 300-hour coverage, both live and the biggest since Sydney (not to mention using the same voiceovers from Sydney), after AFL Friday night footy:

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We've been talking about the Moscow Olympics lately on the ever-popular Ceremonies thread. So why not talk about that here from the broadcast realm, surely that was interesting? As many American Olympic media followers know NBC was planning to broadcast its first Summer Olympics since Tokyo 1964 and overall since Sapporo eight years earlier with around 151 hours of coverage, what was to be America's biggest TV coverage to date after paying $87 million for the rights. To this day, NBC apparently doesn't really like to discuss much of its aborted plans due to the boycott these days after all these years. We know Bryant Gumbel was up to be the main primetime anchor and ceremonies host, something that he eventually get to do with Seoul when NBC reclaimed them and never really looked back. The late Charlie Jones was to be working at Lenin Stadium covering track and field with 1976 Olympic decathlete champ Bruce Jenner and O.J. Simpson (oh, the subsequent tabloid irony of what was to come many years later), who later did it for ABC in LA to likely handle the sprints with Jenner doing the field events. Jones eventually did just that in Seoul, including the infamous 1988 men's 100m final. Frank Shorter would handle the marathon analysis.

Based on what NBC was doing during this time period in its sports department and onward in the 1980s, I can safely assume Dick Enberg and Al McGuire were to cover Olympic basketball because NBC had some NCAA college basketball, including the Final Four back then. Though actually NBC canceled its Olympic coverage plans before naming a primetime host which was supposed to be between Gumbel, Enberg, and NBC Nightly News anchor (and former NBC News Moscow bureau chief) John Chancellor, who surely could provide the news and info about the Soviet Union to the American public. He likely may have joined Gumbel or Enberg covering the ceremonies at Lenin Stadium, if not presented that. Donna de Verona planned to be at the Olympic Complex swimming pool with swimming at nighttime and be among the non-primetime anchors during the daytime before that. She was also to conduct some of that roving reporting during Moscow with Jenner. Don't know what the late Merle Harmon was to cover in Moscow since his background definitely was football. Hmmmm, swimming with de Verona and John Naber? More like Don Criqui's assignment back then at NBC. Cycling? Maybe rowing? I'd say gymnastics. Then again, Enberg would cover that like he did in Seoul. Marv Albert and Dr. Ferdie Pacheco would've been at ringside with NBC had significant boxing coverage back then thanks to Sportsworld. Joel Meyers might have done canoeing and kayaking. Jay Randolph would have to get involved in somewhere. Seamus Malin would deal with, naturally, soccer. Tom Hammond would perhaps tackle diving like in Seoul. As would Jim Simpson in equestrian.

What was interesting in the NBC plans was of the late night segment, where sports that don't get lots of attention by NBC programmers to viewers like team handball, judo, and water polo. The late night segment (10:30pm-12:30am US CST) was to be more light-hearted with a fusion of entertainment with Joe Garagiola bringing the sports with potential hopes of having Hollywood stars who enjoy the Olympics discussing them. David Letterman was to be the major part of this too with everything on tape, connecting all it all.

This is an interesting video from NBC affiliates KTVL and KTVZ showing what Donna de Verona and Joe Garagiola planned to do with NBC's soon-to-be-aborted 150 hours of Moscow Olympics coverage back in January 1980 and their hopes, assuming if the politics weren't going to interfere. Both revealed a general assignment for each along with, interestingly, outtakes of station promo plugging in the end.

Of the 1100 person NBC crew that went to Seoul, 25% of them was originally part of the NBC Moscow 1980 team. The LA Times allows that crew to reflect on what might have been for them just like the athletes feeling shattered and devastated in not going and elated getting a second chance in Seoul, South Korea when NBC regained the US Olympic TV rights unlike many of the 1980 US Olympians. This would be good for now to start with; I'll discuss more on Moscow tomorrow

http://articles.latimes.com/1988-07-17/sports/sp-9755_1_moscow-olympics

since i might mention what if ABC did Seoul? my thinking would have been Frank Gifford would have been primetime host since Mckay was close to cutting back Keith Jackson and Dick Vitale would have been on basketball and maybe Gary Bender also on that sport(maybe Jackson does swimming the first week?) Al Trautwig would have been at the gymnastics venue with Cathy Rigby with Becky Dixon doing the role that Anne Simon did in 84 Al Michaels would have done track just like in 84 also they had Mike Adamle on staff maybe he does one of the minor sports? Donna de Verona would have been at the swimming pool with Keith Jackson most likely they had Don Cheriver for boxing or maybe Chris Schenkel? i also wonder how they would have handled MNF and CFB at that time? they would have been withouth Gifford or Michaels so..maybe they bring in Mike Patrick and Joe Theismann from ESPN for MNF as far as CFB they could have used Jim Kelly from ESPN to work with Griese or even used someone else Bob Beattie might have done volleyball just like in 84 cant think of what Jack Whitaker would have done maybe equestrian? Russ Hellckson would have done wrestling maybe solo? or maybe Adamle joins him for PBP dont know who would have done rowing or handball or tennis maybe Cliff Drysdale on tennis? what about Steve Alvarez? he could have done handball or rowing they also had Jack Arute on staff maybe he does cycling since he did that during 91 Pan Ams

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We've been talking about the Moscow Olympics lately on the ever-popular Ceremonies thread. So why not talk about that here from the broadcast realm, surely that was interesting? As many American Olympic media followers know NBC was planning to broadcast its first Summer Olympics since Tokyo 1964 and overall since Sapporo eight years earlier with around 151 hours of coverage, what was to be America's biggest TV coverage to date after paying $87 million for the rights. To this day, NBC apparently doesn't really like to discuss much of its aborted plans due to the boycott these days after all these years. We know Bryant Gumbel was up to be the main primetime anchor and ceremonies host, something that he eventually get to do with Seoul when NBC reclaimed them and never really looked back. The late Charlie Jones was to be working at Lenin Stadium covering track and field with 1976 Olympic decathlete champ Bruce Jenner and O.J. Simpson (oh, the subsequent tabloid irony of what was to come many years later), who later did it for ABC in LA to likely handle the sprints with Jenner doing the field events. Jones eventually did just that in Seoul, including the infamous 1988 men's 100m final. Frank Shorter would handle the marathon analysis.

Based on what NBC was doing during this time period in its sports department and onward in the 1980s, I can safely assume Dick Enberg and Al McGuire were to cover Olympic basketball because NBC had some NCAA college basketball, including the Final Four back then. Though actually NBC canceled its Olympic coverage plans before naming a primetime host which was supposed to be between Gumbel, Enberg, and NBC Nightly News anchor (and former NBC News Moscow bureau chief) John Chancellor, who surely could provide the news and info about the Soviet Union to the American public. He likely may have joined Gumbel or Enberg covering the ceremonies at Lenin Stadium, if not presented that. Donna de Verona planned to be at the Olympic Complex swimming pool with swimming at nighttime and be among the non-primetime anchors during the daytime before that. She was also to conduct some of that roving reporting during Moscow with Jenner. Don't know what the late Merle Harmon was to cover in Moscow since his background definitely was football. Hmmmm, swimming with de Verona and John Naber? More like Don Criqui's assignment back then at NBC. Cycling? Maybe rowing? I'd say gymnastics. Then again, Enberg would cover that like he did in Seoul. Marv Albert and Dr. Ferdie Pacheco would've been at ringside with NBC had significant boxing coverage back then thanks to Sportsworld. Joel Meyers might have done canoeing and kayaking. Jay Randolph would have to get involved in somewhere. Seamus Malin would deal with, naturally, soccer. Tom Hammond would perhaps tackle diving like in Seoul. As would Jim Simpson in equestrian.

What was interesting in the NBC plans was of the late night segment, where sports that don't get lots of attention by NBC programmers to viewers like team handball, judo, and water polo. The late night segment (10:30pm-12:30am US CST) was to be more light-hearted with a fusion of entertainment with Joe Garagiola bringing the sports with potential hopes of having Hollywood stars who enjoy the Olympics discussing them. David Letterman was to be the major part of this too with everything on tape, connecting all it all.

This is an interesting video from NBC affiliates KTVL and KTVZ showing what Donna de Verona and Joe Garagiola planned to do with NBC's soon-to-be-aborted 150 hours of Moscow Olympics coverage back in January 1980 and their hopes, assuming if the politics weren't going to interfere. Both revealed a general assignment for each along with, interestingly, outtakes of station promo plugging in the end.

Of the 1100 person NBC crew that went to Seoul, 25% of them was originally part of the NBC Moscow 1980 team. The LA Times allows that crew to reflect on what might have been for them just like the athletes feeling shattered and devastated in not going and elated getting a second chance in Seoul, South Korea when NBC regained the US Olympic TV rights unlike many of the 1980 US Olympians. This would be good for now to start with; I'll discuss more on Moscow tomorrow

http://articles.latimes.com/1988-07-17/sports/sp-9755_1_moscow-olympics

with NBC and Seoul, i am shocked that they didn't go with Enberg as primetime host but i guess they didn't want two of their big stars not being happy so that's why they created the venue host role of Enberg

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with NBC and Seoul, i am shocked that they didn't go with Enberg as primetime host but i guess they didn't want two of their big stars not being happy so that's why they created the venue host role of Enberg

Enberg was their main voice for NFL games and went on to call the Super Bowl that year. They probably wanted Gumbel as their main host so he could spend that summer focusing on the Olympics rather than football. Obviously NBC was going to bring over a lot of their main talent and pull them off NFL coverage, but better to have someone not as invested in the NFL to be their main primetime host.

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