NBC Sports will be inducted into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame during the NAB Show Television Luncheon. Accepting the honor will be Emmy Award-winner Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics. The luncheon, sponsored by VCI solutions, will be held Monday, April 12.
"From the Olympics to its coverage of the NFL, the Kentucky Derby and Wimbledon, among other sports franchises, NBC Sports has always been a pioneer in storytelling and a leader in 'must-see' over-the-air broadcast programming," said Marcellus Alexander, NAB executive vice president of television.
Among the properties broadcast by NBC Sports are the Olympics, NFL, NHL, Notre Dame football, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, the PGA TOUR, the United States Golf Association (USGA) Championships, Wimbledon and the French Open.
Under Ebersol's leadership, NBC Sports has become synonymous with production that elevates the event, broad promotion and mutually beneficial partnerships. He has produced eight of the top 10 most-watched TV events in U.S. history and recently produced three milestone TV events: the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 became one of the most-watched events in U.S. TV history with a record 215 million viewers; the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games in 2010 had 190 million viewers; and Super Bowl XLIII in February 2009 had a record 152 million viewers.
Over more than three decades in TV, Ebersol stands alone as an executive who has played a prominent role in the wide-ranging fields of sports, entertainment and news. His crowning achievement has been establishing NBC Universal as the home of the Olympic Games.
Beginning in 1967, when he temporarily dropped out of Yale University to join Roone Arledge and ABC Sports as an Olympic researcher, his passion has been the Olympics. In 1989, Ebersol returned to NBC as president of NBC Sports. He served as executive producer for the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, his first Olympics since Munich in 1972 for ABC, and then began an unprecedented run of Olympic rights agreements that established NBC as "America's Olympic Network."
Previous NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame TV inductees include Bob Newhart, Bob Barker, NBC's" Meet the Press," Regis Philbin, "The Tonight Show," "Saturday Night Live," Ted Koppel, "M*A*S*H," "60 Minutes," "The Today Show" and "Star Trek," among others.
