Olympic rings return to most NBC bugs

NBC has made an update to many of its bugs that normally wouldn’t been seen in an odd numbered year such as 2021.

NBC Sports’ new ‘2020NE’ Olympics text is confusing people

As is typical in Olympics years, the network added the Olympic rings to most of its bugs in January 2020 — looking forward to the summer games in Japan.

However, as coronavirus escalated from an epidemic to pandemic, the International Olympic Committee announced it would postpone the games until 2021, meaning NBC’s coverage would be pushed back as well.

In late March 2020, NBC removed the rings from its bugs.

With the dawn of 2021, however, the rings are back (though thankfully that awkward 2020ne logo hasn’t been featured prominently).

The rings have been re-added to the translucent bug used during most dayside and primetime network programming (note that local stations are given select times to insert their own bugs when shows start or return from breaks so the rings may not appear all the time).

NBC owned stations, including WMAQ in Chicago, added the iconic logo back as well.

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‘Today’ also began sporting the rings again in its rotating bug box Jan. 1, though with an alternative color scheme. This screen shot from a separate edition shows the ‘normal’ look. ‘NBC Nightly News’ has not added the rings to its bug, which morphs between the show’s logo and NBC News logo.

2021 will mark the first odd numbered year the games will be held in since the modern age of the Olympics — although the games will still officially be branded with the year “2020.”

Normally the summer and winter Olympic games are held every four years on even numbered years, though they are offset by two years meaning that there is an Olympics every two years as well.

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NBC is also keeping its own Tokyo logo, which is developed separately from the host city, as reading”2020.”