MILANย โย Heโs as smooth as a bobsled track and sharp as a skate blade.
Snoop Dogg, the rap rapscallion who puts the OG in Olympic Games, plopped down on a couch in the NBC green room and muted the TV. Itโs exhausting being everywhere at all times at the most spread-out Winter Games in history.
Whether he was carrying the Olympic torch, skiing with Picabo Street, sliding a curling stone or driving a Zamboni, Snoop was everywhere. He finished each day with a highlight show from the Milan studios.
So ubiquitous was the so-called Ambassador of Happiness, youโd swear NBC duped a Snoop โ or maybe two.
Snoop Dogg, right, and five-time Olympic gold medalist former speedskater Eric Heiden watch speedskating at the Milan-Cortina Olympics on Feb. 11.
(Ben Curtis / Associated Press)
โThe Winter Olympics are underrated,โ he said in an interview Friday at the networkโs Olympic complex. โItโs not highly-touted like it should be. This is an event that is just as good as the Super Bowl, as the Summer Olympics. Thereโs so much action and thereโs so much happening, and itโs not just one day. Itโs not just four quarters. Itโs weeks of great competition โ on ice, for the most part.โ
Itโs almost as if the angular, 6-foot-4 Snoop is on ice as he glides through the back halls of NBCโs temporary headquarters, wearing a white turtleneck under a red-white-and-blue leather jacket with โCOACH SNOOPโ across the front. Heโs wearing a gold-rope chain with the Universal logo as a pendant, and gold-rimmed sunglasses that are square and lightly tinted.
He greets everyone he sees and a friendly assistant follows him, handing out Olympic pins of a tiny, cartoonish Snoop with his arms raised at his side, standing in front of an American flag.
Is it any wonder this guy creates a buzz in every venue he enters? He is the No. 1 celebrity sighting at the Games.
โSnoop has a joy about him, a childlike curiosity, and heโs also a people person,โ said Molly Solomon, executive producer and president of programming for NBCโs Olympics coverage. โHe wants to lift people up in all aspects of his persona.โ
NBC began using the rapper as part of its Olympic coverage during the Tokyo Games in 2021 with the streaming Peacock show โOlympic Highlights with Kevin Hart & Snoop Dogg.โ Many of their playful clips and humorous commentary went viral and was especially appealing to younger viewers. Snoop genuinely enjoyed the competition, even though a lot of it was new to him.
Three years later, as the network was preparing for the Paris Olympics, executives were looking for ways to enhance the primetime coverage, much of which would air on tape because of time-zone differences. They decided to expand Snoopโs role to give the perspective of a โsuper fan.โ With these Olympics, his role further evolved into an experiential one, and to serve as an informal mentor and ambassador to the athletes.
โThis is the biggest stage in the world,โ he said. โNobody gets to perform in front of the world like they do, with the whole world paying attention. To have all of that pressure of [something] youโve been working for four years/ โฆ Some of these girls and guys get that one shot, their event is only one time.โ
As a roving correspondent, he did โฆ well, some serious roving.
That included making the drive from Milan to Cortina for curling, sliding and womenโs ski racing. Thatโs a four-hour van ride each way, some of it winding into the Dolomites.
โTrying to sleep with my head up against the window, with turning curves and every mountaintop,โ he said. โSliding by trains and traffic, and oh my god, I couldnโt drive out here. One way streets. Little-bitty trains coming this way, that way. Bicycles, mopeds. Itโs a lot.โ
He also made a 3ยฝ-hour trip to Livigno to watch snowboarding โ and said that if he had to pick a sport to compete in, that would be his choice.
โI think I could get good in snowboard, because I just like the creativity of when youโre in the air you have full control but you in the air,โ he said. โI just feel like thatโs something I could really be good at.โ
So he must have skateboarded as a kid growing up in Long Beach, right?
โNever,โ he said. โThatโs what Iโm saying. None of these sports are near and dear to me. Thatโs why itโs gonna be a first-time trial. But I know who I am. I donโt like to fail. I donโt like to lose. So Iโm just such a perfectionist that I will get good enough to be good enough.โ
Heโs 54 and concedes his body canโt always accomplish what his mind thinks it can. He tried running the 200 meters at the Olympic trials in Oregon before the Paris Games and did so in 33 seconds, but he limped away with an injury. So he has a goal for when the Summer Games come to Los Angeles in two years.
โWhen we get to L.A., my mission is for me to run the 200 in under 30 seconds,โ he said. โIn 2028, I should be 56 years old. So if I can run it in under 30 seconds at 56, thatโs a gold medal for me.โ
Solomon said NBC is still brainstorming about how Snoopโs role will evolve for the 2028 Games.
Honorary Team USA coach Snoop Dogg throws a curling stone as Americans Daniel Casper and Tabitha Peterson Lovick watch on Feb. 6 in Cortina dโAmpezzo, Italy.
(Richard Heathcote / Getty Images)
โOf course, L.A. is Snoopโs hometown,โ she said. โSo he will be a hometown hero.โ
Snoop said his love for the Olympics dates to the 1984 Los Angeles Games. He didnโt attend any events at the time, though, noting that for a 13-year-old kid growing up in Long Beach, the city felt โlike a whole state away.โ
โWe were watching on television,โ he said. โWe never thought we could physically be there. โฆ It just felt good to be an American, to watch us compete against the whole world and to see how great we were.โ
Heโs particularly interested in flag football โ which will make its debut in the Los Angeles Olympics โ and created a youth football league that counts among its alumni future NFL standouts C.J. Stroud and JuJu Smith-Schuster.
โI think flag football is a sport the whole world can grab ahold of,โ Snoop said. โThere are so many athletes that are in the NFL that are from different parts of the world that theyโve grown the sport from them just making it to the NFL and being an inspiration for the next generation.โ
Spoken like a true Ambassador of Happiness.