OBS Paris Olympics open captures action of the games amid host city’s iconic architecture

The Olympic Broadcasting Services‘ open for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, combines active athletic imagery while continuing the thematic elements that have been used for years.

Like in 2022, 2020-2021, 2018 and 2016, OBS continues to use stylized figures of athletes engaged in a variety of activities amid iconic French scenes and landmarks. 

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The sequence features the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, Louvre, Palace of Versailles, Luxor Obelisk and Jardin des Plantes are among the locations featured, along with broader depictions of French streets, rooftops, Seine, bridges and Olympics venues.

The color palette of the open centers around blue-violet shades with various accents including teal, tan, gold and lighter blues.

The final scene of the open showcases a wide view of the Seine and its bridges, along with oversized versions of the Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and the glass pyramid at the Louvre looming out the horizon.

The OBS open was created by Olympic Broadcasting Services, an organization created by the International Olympic Committee to provide shared services and standards to its rights-holding broadcasters. 

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In a broad sense, the OBS operates as a sort of pool service for the RHBs, setting up and maintaining camera locations throughout the host city and venues that its partner broadcasters are able to use. 

OBS, in turn, pulls from these cameras to produce polished event feeds using modern sportscast standards and provides them to RHBs, who often air them as-is or combine them with their own live or recorded content, graphics, camera feeds and anchor and commentator intros.

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This avoids the cost of having each RHB send a separate camera crew to the same places to capture essentially the same images. OBS also provides on-screen graphics with elements such as rankings and timekeeping that appear to viewers around the world.

OBS creates its own open each year to be used at the start of distinct coverage blocks that are, in turn, provided to all broadcast partners. RHBs have the option to air it as is or by overlaying their own logos and branding. Some omit it entirely, instead opting to use their own opens and introductory material in its place.

NBC Sports reveals 2024 Paris Olympics logo

The OBS open uses the French organizing committee’s Paris 2024 circular flame logo. RHBs have the option to create their own logos, such as NBC’s diamond-shaped look.