Full Sail Stories

The 2026 Winter Olympics brought together some of the world’s top winter sports athletes to northern Italy in February. Several Full Sail grads got the chance to work in some unique roles to support NBC's coverage of this year’s Winter Games.

“We were excited for NBC to get a taste of the skills, teamwork, and high levels of attention to detail that our grads come in the door with,” says Rishi Barran, Department Chair of the Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting. “It’s a real grind-it-out production where you have to be sharp through long hours and meet specific deadlines. [Our grads] got as high a level of experience as possible working for one of the top companies in broadcasting.”

Sportscasting course director Mark Condron, who teaches Project and Portfolio IV, was instrumental in bringing several grads on board to assist. Mark also contributed as a producer to the 24/7 Best of Milan Cortina channel available on Peacock and the NBC Sports digital platforms, helping to select the best highlights of the day to be featured.

“We pride ourselves on having faculty that continue to do work in the industry,” Rishi explains. “Mark has covered quite a few Olympics in his career. It’s nice to have someone on the front lines at a company as big as NBC learning what’s new each year so we can bring that industry knowledge back into the classroom.”

Cameron Champagne, a 2021 Sportscasting grad, was a Runner who worked Production Support in Livigno, Italy, covering the snowboarding, aerials, and moguls events. Several Sportscasting grads also worked as Production Assistants out of the NBC Universal broadcast facility in Stamford, Connecticut. These included Aca Anderson V (2022), Johnathan Richardson (2022), Jackson Faulknor (2023), and Josh Minker (2025). They identified highlights and helped create content for Peacock, NBCOlympics.com, NBCSports.com, and each of the mobile apps.

Cameron Champagne

In addition to grads working as part of NBC's broadcast teams, 2017 Sports Marketing & Media bachelor’s grad Alberto Pisani held a unique role on site in Italy as a Senior Transport Advisor with the Citec Group. He helped with transportation for delegations and Olympic staff around the Milan and Cortina areas. Alberto previously worked at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, and 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

This wasn’t the first time several Full Sail grads contributed to the Olympic Games. A number of alumni also assisted at the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.

“The Olympic Games bring the entire world together. It’s an opportunity for a demonstration of what is great about sports, the competition, sportsmanship, the high level of events… It all brings out pride in humanity at its highest level. I’m so happy our grads have helped share that message throughout the world in a way that can positively affect many people,” Rishi says.