DIFFEY GETS BIG GIG

Former Supercars TV race-caller Leigh Diffey has scored a primary commentary role at the Tokyo Olympics with American broadcasting giant NBC.
Just weeks after calling the Indianapolis 500 next Monday (Australian time), Brisbane-born Diffey will be NBC Sports’ lead track and field commentator at the XXXII Games of the Olympiad.
Along with swimming, track and field is the showcase of the Summer Olympics, headlined by the glamour 100 metre sprints.
Other feature events are the 400 metre relays and 1500 metre races.
Connecticut-based Diffey, 50, is NBC Sports’ lead motor racing commentator, heading the network’s IndyCar Series coverage.
He will again head the play-by-play coverage of the Indy 500, featuring Brisbane-born Kiwi pole-sitter Scott Dixon, reigning triple Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin and Australia’s 2015 winner Will Power.
Diffey, who has dual Australian/USA citizenship, became the first foreign-born lead commentator of the Indy 500 telecast in 2019.
His promotion to Summer Olympics track and field commentator continues his American sportscasting success story.
He will be the highest profile – and most heard – Australian commentator at the Tokyo Olympics, which are due to start on July 23, running for two weeks in the Japanese capital.
NBC, one of America’s ‘Big Three’ free-to-air TV networks, is the USA broadcast rights-holder of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, postponed from last year because of the coronavirus global pandemic.
Across its FTA and streaming platforms, NBC will show to Tokyo Olympics to more than 100 million.
Diffey’s audience will dwarf that of local legend Bruce McAvaney, who will anchor Seven’s exclusive Tokyo Games coverage.
McAvaney, who retired from AFL commentary this year, will be by far the second most heard Aussie commentator behind Diffey.
Tokyo is only the second city to host the Summer Games twice, joining London (1948 and 2012). It held the 1964 Olympics, the first broadcast worldwide via satellite.
Paris (2024) and Los Angeles (2028) are scheduled to hold the Games again.
Australia has hosted the Summer Olympics twice – Melbourne in 1956 and Sydney in 2000 – and southeast Queensland is hot favourite for 2032.
Diffey, a PE teacher at Ipswich Grammar before becoming a professional motorsport commentator, rose from local track commentary to calling Australian Super Touring broadcasts in the mid-1990s.
He switched to V8 Supercars TV commentator on Channel 10 in 1997, moving to the UK to call the British Superbike championship on BBC TV in 2000.
The laconic Queenslander went to the States in 2003, becoming NBC Sports’ IndyCar and F1 commentator in ’13.
Diffey’s rapid-fire, informed commentary has been popular with American viewers – so much so that NBC promoted him to calling rugby union and rowing at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
He has also done play-by-play commentary of other sports for NBC.
His crowning glory was becoming the Indy 500 race-caller in 2019, when NBC took over from long-time American broadcaster ABC.
He is the first foreign-born commentator to lead the play-by-play call of the Indy 500, which will be seen here on Fox Sports.
Diffey is the latest in a long line of Australian sports commentators who have succeeded in the USA and UK.
He declined a serious offer to return home to anchor Supercars’ broadcasts amid the off-season debate about the commentary line-up.
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