NBC Taps Halle Berry to Host Super Bowl 56 Kickoff Opening Segment

We're still waiting to hear which A-listers will be popping up in Super Bowl 56 ads on Feb. 13, but at least one major star will be prominently featured in NBCUniversal's coverage of the game. Halle Berry is set to host the opening segment of NBC's Super Bowl kickoff show, an idea that Fred Gaudelli, executive producer of Sunday Night Football and Super Bowl 56, said was hatched during the spring of 2020. It’s been nearly 30 years since the greater Los Angeles area hosted the Super Bowl, and NBC wanted “to do an open that kind of merged Hollywood and the Super Bowl," Gaudelli said during a pre-recorded Super Bowl 56 and Winter Olympics press briefing released today. "We were able to get Halle Berry to be the host of this open." The 6 p.m. ET kickoff show will also include clips from famous football movies and previous Super Bowls, and Gaudelli teased “some really great cameos” from Hollywood actors and Super Bowl luminaries. NBCU Still Has ‘a Few’ Super Bowl 56 Ad Units Left, Winter Games Sales On Par With 2018 “SoFi is a magnificent, magnificent architectural structure, we will obviously show that off,” said Gaudelli of the stadium that will host Super Bowl 56. “There will definitely be a Los Angeles flavor that not only will be reflected in our graphic look, but be sprinkled in throughout the broadcast of the game.” Mike Tirico, host of NBC Olympics Primetime and the Super Bowl 56 pregame show, added that the hours leading up to the broadcast will “have very much a feel of Los Angeles and Southern California as one of America’s iconic cities gets a chance to host our biggest sports day.” Intersection with the Olympics The 2022 Winter Olympics kick off Feb. 2, and will still be taking place during Super Bowl 56. NBCUniversal plans to leverage both tentpole events to drive viewership and sales. Instead of airing one of its new or returning entertainment shows in its post-Super Bowl 56 time slot, NBCUniversal will broadcast coverage of the Winter Olympics. Those events include two gold medal finals within 75 minutes after the conclusion of the Super Bowl, a skating event and a new women’s bobsledding event. “We'll have that 100 million-plus audience from the Super Bowl, and we'll segue right into live Olympic coverage back in Beijing and to me, that's an unbelievably really unparalleled and never before seen one-two punch,” said Pete Bavacqua, chairman of NBC Sports. “From a sales perspective, from a marketing perspective, it's an absolute home run." After anchoring the Olympic primetime show in Beijing through Thursday, Feb. 10, Tirico then will fly 6,200 miles to Los Angeles and continue his Olympic hosting the next night from a special set outside SoFi Stadium. On Super Bowl Sunday, he'll host the five-hour pregame show, and then also emcee that night's Olympic competition following the game. “There’s definitely operational challenges because we’re all going to be doing double duty,” said Pete Bavacqua, chairman of NBC Sports. “I think the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. When you think about our sales efforts, I'm of the mindset that a rising tide lifts all ships. When you can go out there to the ad sales community and talk to our partners and talk about the power of the Winter Olympics and the power of the Super Bowl, I mean, that's a great story.” NBCUniversal still has "a few" Super Bowl ad units left, but the game is “virtually sold out,” Dan Lovinger, evp, advertising sales, NBC Sports Group said during the briefing. As for Winter Olympics ad revenue, Lovinger said the company is at exactly the same spot as it was heading into the 2018 Games, with nearly 100 advertisers lined up.