Jim Bell

Jim Bell was promoted to President, NBC Olympics Production & Programming in January 2017. He oversees for all day-to-day editorial production and programming aspects of NBC Olympics’ linear coverage of the Games as well as The Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA, a partnership between the International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee, and NBCUniversal. Bell also added the title Executive Producer, Telemundo World Cup, in January 2017, in which he will oversee the Spanish-language network’s first-ever coverage of the event in 2018. Bell reports directly to Mark Lazarus, Chairman, NBC Broadcasting & Sports, NBCUniversal.

Bell has worked on every Olympics since the 1992 Barcelona Games with NBC Sports (1992-2004, 2012-2016) or NBC News (2006-12). Bell is in his second stretch with NBC Sports, as he rejoined NBC Sports Group full-time following seven years (2005-12) as Executive Producer of TODAY. He served as both executive producer of TODAY and the London Olympics in 2012, which is the most-watched television event in U.S. history with more than 217 million viewers. Bell also served as the executive producer of the 2014 Sochi Games, the most dominant primetime Winter Olympics performance on record, and the 2016 Rio Olympics, the most successful media event in history.

During his TODAY tenure, the show extended its dominance in the morning ratings race to 16 years, earned seven Emmys, seven Edward R. Murrow Awards and nine Headliner Awards. Bell also won Emmys for his work on the 1992, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2012 and 2016 Olympics and a Peabody for NBC’s coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony.

Prior to joining TODAY, Bell was coordinating producer for NBC Olympics, leading the production hiring for the Olympics unit and supervising nearly 100 hours of afternoon and late night programming on NBC during the 2004 Athens Summer Games.

Bell’s career as a producer for NBC began in 1990 when he was hired to profile athletes for the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. He worked each subsequent Summer Olympic Games for NBC, and the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Over the following 14 years, he produced NBC broadcasts of the NFL, MLB, and the NBA, and won Emmys for the 1997 NBA Finals and Wimbledon tennis in 1998.

Bell graduated cum laude from Harvard with a B.A. in government in 1989. He was an All-Ivy defensive tackle and a member of the school’s Ivy League Championship team in 1987. He resides in Greenwich, Conn., with his wife, Angelique, and their four sons.