An Olympic Researcher position at NBCUniversal is one of the most coveted entry level jobs in sports media. Young 20-something college graduates are given the opportunity to travel around the world to become an expert in their assigned sports and interview athletes so they can tell their stories during the Olympics.
The researchers travel to World Cups, world championships, and Grand Prix to collect primary-source information on the men and women who could turn into Olympic stars. The main responsibility of the position involves working on research manuals for every sport, that can be up to 600 pages each and run several volumes long.
We sat down with Alex Goldberger, the senior member of the current Olympic research team, to find out more about his job and what he’s doing to prepare for the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.