Mike Tirico called joining NBC Sports “the opportunity of a lifetime” with the chance to cover the Olympics “at the top of the list.”
Tirico, who has been with ESPN since 1991, will join NBC Sports on July 1 and cover the Rio Olympics in August, among other major events.
“Watching the Olympics growing up as a kid is one of the reasons that I wanted to do this,” Tirico said Monday. “When the Olympics came on, that stopped everything. It stopped everything in our house, and our family. We gathered around.”
“You get caught up in the emotion of it and the global gathering. As the world gets smaller, there’s still something big about the Olympics and everyone coming together in the name of sport and in one place. That has been something that has appealed to me as a fan, as a sportscaster, and the chance to know that you can be a part of it going forward and bringing it back home to the U.S. for the next few Olympic Games was right at the top of the list of things that made it impossible to turn away from this opportunity.”
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