Molly Solomon

Nine-time Emmy Award-winner and longtime NBC Olympics producer Molly Solomon became the first woman to serve as executive producer for a national sports network on February 29, 2012 when she was named Executive Producer and Senior Vice President, Production and Operations for Golf Channel. Solomon reports directly to Mike McCarley, President, Golf Channel.

In her role, Solomon oversees all aspects of production for programming on Golf Channel, including tournament coverage, news, original productions and operations. She works out of the Golf Channel’s Orlando Studios.

Prior to her role at Golf Channel, Solomon served as the Coordinating Producer for NBC Olympics and was involved in every facet of production and planning, including program development, operational planning, and the hiring and assigning of on-air talent and production staff for numerous Olympic Games. Despite her role she will continue to perform many of her duties as coordinating producer for NBC Olympics through the 2012 London Games, which begin July 27. As previously scheduled, she will produce the Opening Ceremony and primetime show broadcasts from London, and will continue to work on future Games for NBC Olympics.

During the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Solomon oversaw all NBC Olympics cable programming, Olympic news assignment desk and produced the network’s figure skating coverage. In 2008 in Beijing Olympics, Solomon was responsible for more than 500 hours of Olympic programming across the NBC Universal family of cable networks – CNBC, MSNBC, USA and Oxygen. She also produced the network’s acclaimed daytime and weekend coverage.

Solomon won a Gracie Award from the American Women in Radio & Television for her Beijing work. NBC’s coverage of the 2008 Olympics’ Opening Ceremony also was honored with a prestigious Peabody Award, and Solomon was one of the producers on that Primetime program. She was named “Woman of the Year” by WISE (Women in Sports Events) in 2008 and following the Athens Olympics, the Sports Business Journal named Solomon one of its “40 Under 40.”  In 2001, Solomon was named one of six of cable television’s “Women to Watch” by Cablevision. She has been nominated for 21 Sports Emmys, winning nine in her NBC career.

During the 2004 Games, Solomon oversaw 415.5 hours of Olympic coverage (the vast majority of which was live) scheduled for MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo and USA. In response to her expert eye for selecting on-air talent for the Athens Games, The Wall Street Journal noted, “Kudos to Molly Solomon, NBC’s cable queen, for (among many things) finding enough expert commentators to commentate on sports that had never been commentated on before.”

Solomon began her NBC career in 1990 as one of two Olympic researchers for NBC’s Emmy Award-winning coverage of the Barcelona Games in 1992. In that role, she compiled event, biographical and historical information on virtually every competitor and country involved in the Barcelona Games, resulting in an eight-volume manual. She then served as a writer and information assistant to Bob Costas during NBC’s primetime coverage in Barcelona.

Between her Olympic assignments, Solomon has been involved with many NBC Sports productions. She has served as the Studio Show Producer during USA Network’s coverage of the US Open and NBC’s Late Night Wimbledon show. Other assignments have included serving as the Co-Producer of the NBA on NBC studio show for two years and as the Coordinating Producer of the network’s WNBA coverage. She also worked extensively on NBC Sports’ golf production for six years (1993-99), which produced one of her nine Emmy Awards.

A Phi Beta Kappa member, Solomon graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in 1990, with a B.S. in international politics. Solomon resides in Southport, Conn. with her husband Geoff Russell, the editor of Golf World Magazine. Molly and Geoff are parents to triplets (Jonathan, Alexandra and Madeleine).