What’s a former Olympic athlete to do once they’ve competed on the highest stage their sport has to offer? For almost two dozen, the answer has been to go on “American Ninja Warrior.”
In its eight seasons, the NBC reality competition show has seen 23 Olympians attempt its notoriously challenging obstacle course, including eight gymnasts, seven track and field athletes, and others from luge, rowing, boxing, snowboarding and hockey. One former ninja, Logan Dooley, will compete for Team USA in trampoline at the 2016 Summer Games; Olympic wrestler Jordan Burroughs has already contacted producers about wanting to try out for the show when he returns from Rio de Janiero.
“It’s the challenge. It looks fun,” executive producer Kent Weed says of Olympians’ attraction to the show. “It’s also a great way to get back in shape. Any athlete that’s competitive, it just attracts your competitive side.”
“Most of them get to the fourth or fifth obstacle,” he adds. “The one thing all Olympians say to us when they’re done is they really appreciate what good shape these athletes are in and how hard the course is.”
Despite not crowning its first champion (someone completing Stage 4 of the Mt. Midoriyama finals course) until just last season, “American Ninja Warrior” (Mondays at 8 p.m. on NBC) has been growing in popularity. Its current eighth season is averaging about 6 million viewers, a broad-audience appeal it can also partly attribute to the Olympic Games.
The one thing all Olympians say to us is … what good shape these athletes are in and how hard the course is.
- Executive producer Kent Weed
When “ANW” moved from niche cable network G4 to NBC in 2012, its executive producer Arthur Smith — the lead producer of CBC’s Olympics coverage in the 1980s — applied those ubiquitous heartwarming Olympic athlete profiles to the “Ninja” contestants who span careers, ages and family situations.
“We made the stories relatable, made the stories human-interest, stories that were not just sports-centric but had to do with life and emotion,” Weed says.
“[In the Olympics], the only reason [viewers] are interested in luge, a sport that nobody cares about, is they’re interested in what that person did to get there — how did they struggle, what did they fight, what did they overcome. So we tell similar stories.”
The show is taking a three-week hiatus for NBC’s coverage of the Summer Olympics; when it returns on Aug. 22 with the Philadelphia finals, the episode will feature a first in “Ninja Warrior” history — four women have qualified to compete. Call it the “Mighty Kacy” effect. Since Kacy Catanzaro became the first woman to make the national finals in 2014, 40 percent more females have registered for the show.
“It’s rare that one [woman] makes it through to the finals, so to have four is astounding,” Weed says. “It’s just a testament to how far the women have progressed just in the last year in their training. They’re in competition head-to-head against men on the same course, the same obstacles, there’s no handicap and they’re beating them.”
“American Ninja Warrior” returns at 8 p.m. Aug. 22 on NBC