“There ain’t nothing the Snoop Dogg cannot do!”

When long-time US Olympics broadcaster NBC formulated a plan to keep audiences glued to TV sets for almost three weeks, it knew it had to “infuse” some pop culture flavour into the world’s biggest sporting event in Paris.

It signed on big-name entertainers and non-Olympic athletes, but it was US rapper Snoop Dogg who has become the real star of the Games, with his “authentic” approach to the official commentary, chatting to athletes and pairing up with his BFF, cooking icon Martha Stewart.

He’s made rock star entrances into Roland Garros, the skate park, beach volleyball, rolled with the best on the US judo team and the fencers, swum with Michael Phelps and watched in awe of Simone Biles’s vault.

Horsing around

Covering the equestrian team dressage at Chateau de Versailles, he rang the lifestyle guru Stewart – who was in Paris celebrating her 83rd birthday – to team up on some commentary.

“Snoop called me, and he knows I love horses,” Stewart says on her website, who together wore identical dressage outfits including white pants and black tailored jackets.

The expert horsewoman, who says her old friend is a “little fearful” of horses, taught the 1990s rapper how to feed carrots to two horses on the sidelines.

“When the lights are on, that’s when I shine the best,” he told The Associated Press after returning from a track and field day when Noah Lyles won gold in the 100-metre sprint.

“This opportunity was nothing but a chance for me to show the world what it’s supposed to look like when you put the right person in the right environment.

“We [he and the other entertainers] have different perspectives and different views.

“The world that we live in right now, it is appropriate for me to give our side of the story, because we’ve always been a great voice and a great instrument.

“But we’ve never been the conductor. Now I get to play the role of conductor.”

‘Cultural zeitgeist’

In the months before the Games, Snoop commissioned a different outfit for every day of competition.

They included T-shirts and tracksuits emblazoned with his favourite athletes’ faces.

He had a lapel pin made with a picture of him blowing five smoke rings that has since become a popular souvenir.

In an all-white tracksuit, he boarded the US basketball team bus and hung with LeBron James.

“If we bring a little cross-section of America together to give you a flavour of the Games and do it under one tent, it’ll keep you around for 17 nights,” NBC sports host Mike Tirico said.

“That’s our plan. Our goal. We’re so glad that we’ve got people like Snoop, Peyton [Manning], Kelly [Clarkson] and to help us do it.”

The broadcaster also brought on Megan Thee Stallion, rapper Cardi B, actor Lily Collins, Paris Hilton and Dolly Parton for TV segments.

Rise of Snoop Dogg

Born Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr in Long Beach, California, – Snoop got his music break in 1992 as part of the West Coast gangsta rap scene with Dr. Dre.

He went on to sell 35 million albums worldwide, do some acting in films like Training Day and Starsky & Hutch and eventually got a star on the Walk of Fame in 2018.

Snoop met Stewart in 2008 when he joined Stewart to make mashed potatoes on her cooking show, The Martha Stewart Show.

The rapper returned the next year to make brownies. They’ve worked together as roasters on Comedy Central and made a few reality TV shows together including Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party. 

Now, he’s in a league of his own, doing some fine dining with Stewart at the three-Michelin-star restaurant, Le Cinq, in Paris.

She ordered escargots, steak tartare and lardon (pork fat).

“Ain’t no rapper ever did what I’m doing,” Snoop told AP.

“It’s limitations to the field that I come from.

“Rappers aren’t supposed to do this. I tend to do the unthinkable.”

‘This is Snoop Dogg’s Olympics , we’re just living in it’

To date, NBC’s ratings have doubled since the Tokyo Olympics broadcast three years ago, averaging between 32 and 34 million viewers on any one day of competition.

NBC Sports president Rick Cordella says ratings are up, in part thanks to the D-O-G-G.

There has been “a lot more pop culture, celebrities and a lot more Snoop than we’ve had before,” he said.