NBC Announces Surfing Correspondent for 2024 Summer Games
Back in October 2023, NBC Universal announced a casting call for the face of its broadcast coverage at the 2024 Paris Olympics surfing competition. The search called for a content creator who could tell compelling stories at the Games, presumably showing an ability to share surfing with a wide audience comprised mostly of non-surfers.
San Diego’s CJ Kirwan was announced as the guy for the job on Wednesday’s episode of Today. The announcement came after completing a three-step call back process that began with a simple 30-second video on CJ’s TikTok and ended with the video creator going through a broadcasting bootcamp of sorts at the ISA World Surfing Games in Puerto Rico.
The original casting announcement from NBC Universal read, “It’s ok if you don’t know anything about surfing, you can apply regardless.” Kirwan talked about that on the Ho Stevie! podcast last month. He did some investigating to see what other applicants were submitting and felt he had something better to offer than most, so he threw his name in and a few months later the network reached out. At that point, Kirwan was part of a small group of finalists sent to Puerto Rico. In Arecibo, he rallied through a marathon week of early mornings, long commutes, and longer days at the beach manufacturing different stories from around the contest site.
“Surfing is popular, but by no means is it the most popular sport at the Olympics this year,” he said in March. “There’s going to be a lot of new eyes on it (surfing), and being able to be the person that represents this awesome sport, I feel like I can help introduce new people to it. Not only will that help surfing grow but it might help the culture continue to thrive.”
While WSL broadcasts are filled with insiders dishing insights to an endemic audience, it makes sense NBC would prefer a correspondent with an everyman touch for its coverage. Kirwan says he’s become obsessed with surfing over the past five years and his positivity is undeniable.
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