NBC announcer addresses hot mic at Olympics

After getting caught on a hot mic lamenting a “boring” Olympic event, NBC announcer Todd Richards addressed his blunder.

During the Men’s Big Air snowboarding final over the weekend, Richards was heard saying, “That was boring. That was so boring. The qualifier was more exciting” on the Peacock broadcast. After the clip went viral on social media, Richards recorded a video to “address the elephant in the room” and clarify what he meant by his assessment of the “boring” Big Air final.

“This had nothing to do with the athletes, it had everything to do with the drama that went down in qualifiers, we had Val Guseli getting the call-up four hours before the event,” Richards said in his the video. “We had all kinds of different creative tricks being done, butters off the lip, different kinds of axis of rotation, all these riders trying to get it by doing creative spins. In the final? A lot of people fell, and a lot of people truly did the same trick.”

“It has nothing to do with what these athletes do because the riders come out here and they throw down. I have the utmost respect for them. It really just lent itself to the format, and I thought the qualifier had a lot more excitement,” Richards continued of his commentary. “I apologize if anyone took that as if I was calling out any of the riders out there because it truly wasn’t about them. These guys are my heroes, they are my friends, they are my colleagues, and they are all rippers. So, huge shout-outs to everyone who came out here tonight and threw down.”

In the event, Japan’s Kira Kimura won the Men’s Big Air gold medal. Japan’s Ryoma Kimata earned a silver medal with China’s Su Yiming winning bronze. 17-year-old American Ollie Martin just missed out on an Olympic medal, finishing in fourth place.

Richards acknowledged he thought they were off-air when he made the “boring” comment to Todd Harris on the broadcast. But he also maintained that it was an honest assessment and one he would have had no issue saying in public or to a reporter.

This is Richards’ sixth Olympics working as a commentator for NBC. And while NBC might not love its announcers calling an Olympic final “boring” while on-air, this shouldn’t even rate on the hot mic blunder scale. If the event wasn’t as exciting as the qualifier, then Richards wasn’t saying anything the audience didn’t already notice.