COM Alum Will Bring the Summer Olympic Games to Social Media for NBCUniversal
Brian Forte (COM’08), an art director at NBC Sports, was part of a team that transformed a lot at Universal Studios to look like a street in Paris for a 2023 media summit with Olympic athletes. Photos courtesy of Forte
COM Alum Will Bring the Summer Olympic Games to Social Media for NBCUniversal
Art director Brian Forte will be in Paris with dozens of creators
It’s no secret that the Olympic Games are big business. In 2014, NBCUniversal purchased the US broadcast rights to the Games through 2032 for $7.65 billion. That’s billion—with a “b.” For the upcoming Paris Olympic Games, the company will stream more than 5,000 hours of live coverage over two and a half weeks, from the first events on July 24 through the closing ceremonies on August 11.
Needless to say, there’s an army of people working behind the scenes to make all of that happen, among them Brian Forte, art director with NBC Sports. His team’s work can be seen on billboards, television, and across social media—anywhere NBCUniversal is promoting the Olympics or the many other sporting events it broadcasts. That includes the Kentucky Derby, the National Football League, and the Premier League.
In Paris, Forte (COM’08) will also serve as a producer for the Paris Creator Collective, a team of almost 40 social media content creators who will be telling stories from around Paris during the Games.
Forte spoke with Bostonia in between his team’s scouting trip to Paris and returning to the city for the start of the Olympic Games.
The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q&A
With Brian Forte
Bostonia: What does your work as art director at NBC Sports entail?
Forte: I’m an art director on the content marketing team. Our job is to promote any and all programming and sporting events that are broadcast by NBCUniversal. That’s Sunday Night Football. It’s Premier League, NASCAR, the Kentucky Derby, and certainly, the Olympics
Bostonia: How many Olympics have you worked on?
Forte: Sochi, Rio, Pyeongchang, Tokyo, Beijing—this will be my sixth. With any Olympics, there’s a split between our presence in the host city and back in Stamford [Conn.], at our headquarters. For the past five Olympics that’s where I’ve been based. Our team is, day in, day out, creating graphics. But I’ve taken on a second role for Paris and I’ll be over there as a story producer on the Paris Creator Collective.
Bostonia: What is the Paris Creator Collective?
Forte: We’re bringing over almost 40 content creators to Paris to capture everything that’s happening. We’ll be giving people a view of the competition that they won’t see on the broadcast, as well as everything that’s happening in and around Paris. What I will be focusing on is everything that’s going on in Paris outside of the Games. This is the first time this has existed on such a big scale.
Bostonia: Where can people see this?
Forte: This is going to be all over social. On any of NBC’s social platforms, so that ranges from NBC Sports and NBC Olympics to all of our other brands. The Olympics really is one of those events that is such a huge cultural moment that it’s not just about the sports. Everyone within NBC gets involved. And almost 30 of those creators are from the various social platforms—Meta and TikTok and YouTube and all these other platforms are sending creators as part of the collective so they’ll be posting on their own platforms.
Bostonia: What kind of stories are you hoping to find and tell?
Forte: For these games, Paris is such a big part of the story. The Eiffel Tower is the most Instagrammed location on the planet. It’s this place that so many people dream of seeing in person, so part of what we want to do is to capture what it’s like to be in Paris. We did a quick site survey in May to see where everything’s going to be, and you could feel what a special Games it’s going to be. The venues are in the heart of the city. And this is also the first Olympics [since before the pandemic] where fans are going to be back in the stands, where the families of the athletes are going to be there to celebrate with them. The main goal of this team is making sure we capture that spirit of the Olympics to send to everyone back home.
Bostonia: When did you start planning for this summer? When was your first Paris meeting?
A long time ago—probably September or October of 2022. We have the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina coming up in 2026, and we’re already starting to think about that.
Bostonia: What’s the biggest event in your preparations?
One of our big mile markers was this large media summit [at Universal Studios]. It’s our big chance to capture content with the athletes. We had a stage where we were getting photography. We were capturing video with them. There were interview stages. We saw 60 or so athletes over the course of five days. We transformed an alleyway to look like a Paris street.
Bostonia: What are you most looking forward to in Paris?
Besides all the croissants and pastries? I’m looking forward to seeing how much Paris is going to come to life and seeing how magical that Olympic spirit is going to be in the city.
The Paris 2024 Olympic Games run July 24 through August 11 and can be viewed across NBCUniversal channels, including NBC, Peacock, USA Network, and NBCOlympics.com.
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