NBC Olympics names new head of primetime coverage

NBC Sports has re-hired one of its longtime staffers to head up its Olympics primetime programming full-time.

Betsy Riley, who has worked in both freelance and full-time roles with NBC dating back to 2002, left the network for Amazon Prime Video. While there, she was a senior coordinating producer, playing a key role in its upstart sports offerings, including Prime’s “Thursday Night Football,” its 2023 Black Friday NFL game and launch of  National Women’s Soccer League coverage.

While at Amazon, she continued to work for NBC, including working on primetime swimming coverage for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France.

Her return to NBC will see her moving into the role of senior vice president and coordinating producer for NBC Olympics. 

At NBC, Riley’s primary responsibility will be to oversee the production of the primetime coverage on the flagship network, starting with the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina, Italy.

Riley starts in her new role immediately and will report Molly Solomon, executive producer and president, NBC Olympics production.

During her previous stint at NBC Olympics, Riley was a key contributor to the network’s coverage of nine Olympics, going back to the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Since then she contributed to the network’s production of every Olympics with the exception of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and the 2022 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, according to NBC’s announcement.

For Rio 2016, she made history as the first woman to produce Olympic track and field, leading the network’s daytime coverage of the event. She also produced all track & field for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, that was held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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“We are thrilled that Betsy Riley is coming home to NBC,” said Solomon, in a statement. “I’ve worked with Betsy for more than two decades, and her experience producing the Games’ highest-profile sports makes her the perfect person to oversee the Primetime Show. She brings the unique combination of a live-event producer’s instincts and an Olympic veteran’s expertise. Betsy is a terrific leader and innovator whose creativity will be vital as we continue to build off the success of Paris and reimagine how NBC presents the Olympics in Milan, L.A. and beyond.”

In addition to the Olympics, Riley has also worked on NBC Sports’ NFL coverage, serving in a variety of roles including as a “Sunday Night Football” sideline producer, an augmented reality producer for Super Bowl LVI, and an assistant director for NBC’s “Thursday Night Football.” Additionally, she played a key role in multiple Triple Crown campaigns, including American Pharoah and Justify’s Triple Crown wins in 2015 and 2018, respectively.

Riley is an eight-time Sports Emmy Award winner and was named one of Sports Business Journal’s “Game Changers” in 2024. A 2003 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, she started working football broadcasts for NBC while still a student. During her four years in South Bend, she was also a member of the track & field team, where she held school records in the pentathlon and heptathlon.