The AP reports HOF play-by-play announcer Marv Albert will "call Olympic basketball this summer for the first time since" '96. NBC today announced that Albert is "set to be joined in Rio de Janeiro by analyst Doug Collins and reporter Craig Sager for the U.S. team's games." Albert "was the voice of the 'Dream Team' run to gold" during the '92 Olympics. This will be the "fifth straight Olympics for both" Collins and Sager. Basketball HOFer Ann Meyers Drysdale "will also be calling her fifth straight Olympics," serving as the analyst for women's basketball along with "two first timers" in CSN Philadelphia play-by-play announcer Marc Zumoff and CSN Bay Area Warriors reporter Ros Gold-Onwude (AP, 4/12).
HOMEGROWN TALENT: The USOC and NBC Sports Films are co-producing "Olympic Hometowns in America," a new digital documentary series that will consist of 20 episodes and feature seven cities that consistently produce homegrown Olympic participants. The series will be hosted on TeamUSA.org and distributed through Team USA's social channels. Additionally, NBC will repurpose some parts of the series during its coverage of the '16 Rio Games (Team USA).
BOATING LESSONS: The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER's Kate Stanhope noted PBS' "American Experience" series has "greenlit a documentary" about the '36 U.S. men's rowing team "to premiere this summer." Based on the N.Y. Times bestseller "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics," the hourlong doc will tell the story of the nine Univ. of Washington students who "took the rowing world and the nation by storm when they captured the gold medal" at the '36 Berlin Games. The telecast premieres Tuesday, Aug. 2 at 9:00pm ET and will "mark the 80th anniversary of the team's victory" (HOLLYWOODREPORTER.com, 4/11).
