NBCUniversal Says Olympic Games Remain “The Great Aggregator Of Viewership”, With Paris Ad Revenue Ahead Of Tokyo Pace

Dade Hayes
·2 min read

NBCUniversal still considers the Olympic Games to be “the great aggregator of viewership,” in the words of top exec Dan Lovinger, and sees 2024 revenue for Paris on pace to exceed the tally of the 2020 Tokyo Games.

Lovinger provided the outlook on Olympic ads during Advertising Week in New York, echoing recent public comments by NBCU. He said it has sold out its inventory on live coverage of the Opening Ceremony as well as all planned halftime sponsorship positions for team sports like soccer and basketball across linear, streaming and digital platforms.

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The Paris Games will run from July 26 to August 11. Due to Covid, the Tokyo Games were eventually held in 2021, but many ad categories still hadn’t returned to full strength by then and live telecasts were defined by masks and empty seats, not exactly a marketer’s dream.

Digital is on a growth curve, NBCU said. In a Summer Games first, every Olympic and Paralympic event will stream live and on demand on Peacock, with NBC and Peacock serving as primary hubs. Paris will have more programming hours on the NBC broadcast network than any previous Games, while Peacock will offer “the most comprehensive Olympic destination in U.S. media history,” according to NBCU. For the Paralympics, there will be more than 140 televised hours of coverage as well as 1,500 streaming hours on Peacock and digital platforms.

“The Olympic and Paralympic Games is the great aggregator of viewership bringing cultures and communities together to celebrate the pinnacle of athletic achievement and root for their favorite athletes and team,” Lovinger said. The Games offer sponsors and ad buyers “a premium environment to reach dedicated and engaged consumers anywhere and everywhere they are and builds long-lasting impacts for brands within and beyond the Games.”

Jenny Storms, CMO of Sports & Entertainment for NBCU, said the company has “deployed a new consumer engagement vision and reimagined marketing approach for Paris 2024.”

The city itself is a central part of marketing and promotional efforts, given that it is a top destination for Gen Z and Millennials, with the Eiffel Tower one of the leading locations for social media posts.

An early start on marketing the Games, Storms added, has been “bringing Paris 2024 into the cultural conversation and generating millions of impressions and higher intent-to-view figures than recent Games.”

While it had broadcast a couple of one-off editions in the 1960s and ’70s, NBC began its unbroken run as the exclusive U.S. rights holder to the Olympics in 1988.

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