Leslie Jones Is Rio-Bound To Save Olympic Coverage

If you haven’t been watching the 2016 Olympics while simultaneously monitoring your Twitter feed for updates from Leslie Jones, you haven’t been living your best life. Forget Bob Costas and Ryan Seacrest, Jones is the commentator we never knew we needed. Since the games kicked off Friday night, the Ghostbusters star has taken to social media to share her patriotic pride and give her followers some colorful play-by-plays of popular sporting events.

She’s been racking up the retweets the past few nights, even gaining the attention of NBC Rio Olympics producer Jim Bell, who jokingly tweeted that Lesdogg should come down to Brazil to help cover the games. Well folks, it looks like the jokes on NBC, because Jones just accepted the offer.

The comedian tweeted earlier today that she is, in fact, heading to Rio:

Jones will reportedly be joining NBC’s coverage team, attending live events and helping out on air and online — maybe she can take over the NBC Olympics Twitter handle, they’re a bit too spoiler-happy over there.

Here she is trying to understand the physical mechanics of men’s canoe salom:

And, in what may be her best reporting so far, here’s Jones marveling at the complete badassery of fencers:

The fact that NBC has invited Jones down to take on some reporting duties says a lot about this current Olympics programming — and the power the comedian might have to turn things around.

Friday night’s Opening Ceremonies brought in dismal numbers for the peacock network. Viewership was down 35% from the London games and the show scored even worse with younger viewers. Things haven’t improved much over the course of the last few days. Though big events like swimming and gymnastics and big names like Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky and Simone Biles have helped draw better ratings, NBC’s still looking at a 20-year low in terms of Olympic viewership.

For a network that spent billions of dollars purchasing the rights to Olympic coverage for the next decade and some change — the network owns the rights to broadcast the Summer and Winter Olympics through 2032 — lackluster ratings this summer don’t bode well for future advertising prospects.

To put it plainly, NBC needs to make sure people stay interested in the Olympics. At a time when the reporters they’ve hired have come under fire for misogynistic comments and poorly-worded tweets, Jones might just be what the network needs to not only attract a younger crowd, but to get people excited about the games again.

Sure, she isn’t the most knowledgeable when it comes to scoring systems or athletic backgrounds. She can’t rattle off how many championships Biles has won or Phelps’ best times in the 100m fly, but watching the games with her is fun. She’s obviously passionate about team USA and she comes with a refreshing dose of sincerity, enthusiasm and of course, a ton of curse-filled comedy. NBC might have to keep someone on the censor button at all times, but Jones is the best hope the Olympics has this year. We’re rooting for her.

(Via Variety)