On the latest episode of La Previa, Miguel Gurwitz, the Emmy Award-winning sports commentator and one of Telemundo Deportes’ leading on-air personalities, joins Asli Pelit from Paris to discuss the business and growth of the Olympic Games and the art of covering the event.
Gurwitz covered six Summer Olympics, starting with Sydney in 2000, as well as a few Winter Games. The Paris event will mark 20 years of Olympic coverage on Telemundo, the exclusive Spanish-language broadcaster of the Games in the U.S. The network is gearing up to present the most extensive Olympic coverage in Spanish-language media history.
“I always describe the Olympic Games like a buffet. When you come to a buffet, you see a lot of food, but you can’t eat it all, so you have to choose,” Gurwitz said of this year’s vast event coverage. Telemundo and Universo will present over 315 hours of live competitions and daily recap specials. On most days, the network will offer at least six hours of daytime coverage of the Summer Games and up to 12 hours of programming on soccer days. An editorial and production team will use data and machine learning to choose what audiences want to see and put that coverage forward. “It will be a challenge but a magnificent Olympic experience,” he said.
Unlike hundreds of thousands of guests headed to enjoy the event, Gurwitz will be confined to the studio throughout the next 17 days. From 5 a.m. until late at night, the commentator will spend his days either preparing or being on the air. “But no matter how prepared you are, this is sports,” he said. “So, as we say in Mexico, keeping an eye on the cat and another on the scratch, you have to be vigilant and pay attention to more than one thing at a time.”
In terms of location and preparations, Gurwitz expects a memorable event. One hundred years after it last hosted the Games, Paris aims to deliver a more sustainable and inclusive event, with 95% of the Olympic venues having either already existed or set to be temporary. “They spent billions less than what was spent in Tokyo,” Gurwitz said.
Paris organizers implemented various strategies, including repurposing existing facilities, prioritizing sustainable construction practices, promoting eco-friendly transportation options and offsetting excess emissions by purchasing carbon credits. “They certainly did not want to leave the city with a huge debt, the way Montreal did back in 1976,” Gurwitz said.
Three months ago, during a visit to Normandy, France, Gurwitz met the great-great-grandson of International Olympic Committee co-founder and second president Pierre de Coubertin, known as the father of the modern Olympic Games. Gurwitz asked the great-great-grandson what Coubertin would have liked and disliked about today’s Olympic Games.
“He told me that his great-great-grandfather would be proud of many things, but there is one situation that surely would bother him,” Gurwitz said. “And that is how the Games has been globalized in economic terms and lost part of its essence.”
(You can subscribe to La Previa through Apple, Google, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts.)
