How NBC and Peacock won Olympic gold with streaming and advertiser innovations

Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast of all time, won her final medal at this year’s Paris Olympics on what was a Monday morning for those in the U.S., when millions of Americans were at work.

Many heard about it soon after on social media or through news notifications. But that didn’t stop over 29 million viewers from tuning in to NBCUniversal (NBCU) and Peacock’s Olympics coverage during the late afternoon and prime-time slots — hours after the gymnastics event had ended.

This year, NBCU aired popular events live and then packaged compelling narratives around them for the prime-time broadcast and stream.

“It doesn’t matter if [viewers] know the results,” Molly Solomon, the Olympics producer, told Puck. “They want to know the stories of the athletes and how it played out.”

The strategy seemed to work. Overall, this year’s Olympics averaged 30.7 million viewers per day across NBC and its digital platforms, including Peacock, up 82% from 2021. Peacock and NBC’s digital offerings averaged 4.1 million viewers per day.

As the first true streaming Olympics — with all 329 medal events being available to stream and for advertisers to bid on programmatically — Peacock enabled NBCU to update its primetime strategy and expand advertising capabilities. Thanks to technical innovations and new ways to watch, the platform also helped drive engagement with the Games.

NBCU said that it streamed up to 300 live events a day for a total of 3,200 live events over the course of the Games; over a quarter of Peacock viewers watched via Multiview, and 6 out of 10 viewers navigated through the “Browse by Sport” menu.

“Peacock's coverage of the Olympics successfully demonstrated how new digital formats and features can enhance sports content consumption,” Matt Engstrom, VP of marketing at Digital Remedy, tells The Current. “This approach not only engaged viewers but also set a high standard for future events.”

Peacock complemented the events with plenty of other programming and commentary. One of the most popular ways to watch the Olympics was the streamer’s Gold Zone, inspired by NFL RedZone, which covered medal events in real time from 7 a.m. EST to 5 p.m. EST each day. NBCU said 1 in 5 Olympics viewers watched the program, and Gold Zone viewership nearly quadrupled over the course of the Games.

But even midway through the Games, producers were learning on the fly, according to The Hollywood Reporter (THR).

“I have always said, we’re going to be different on day one than day three than day five. We’re still evolving,” Amy Rosenfeld, NBC Sports’ senior VP of Olympic production, told THR. “I am always hesitant to really dive into social media; however, I did notice there were trends of response from the initial users of Gold Zone, and frankly, there were some really good ideas, which we’ve now implemented because we didn’t know until we all experienced it.”

That’s not the only way NBCU utilized social media.

Betting on Gen Z

NBCU knew that attracting young people was essential for these Games’ success. Meeting those viewers where they’re at seemed to be a goal for this year’s coverage.

A recent Hub Entertainment Research survey found that 64% of respondents 18 to 24 years of age intended to watch the Olympics this year, the least likely to say they intended to watch. And yet 33% of those said the “social experience” was a primary motivation to watch. Separately, a recent Ogilvy report found that just 31% of global sports fans in that age demographic watch live matches but are still highly engaged with their favorite sports.

“It’s important to understand that Gen Z loves sports and watching sports, but they’re just watching them differently compared to previous generations,” Antonin Ficatier, an editorial director at YPulse, previously told The Current.

One way that NBCU targeted young viewers was by inviting 27 influencers to the Games, Bloomberg reported, thanks to relaxed social media guidelines this year that also gave athletes more flexibility to share their experiences online. Most of the influencers were not involved in sports to maximize their appeal. The bet was that social media chatter would drive young people to the actual broadcast.

“We know the media landscape is changing,” NBC Sports’ SVP of Consumer Engagement Lyndsay Signor told Bloomberg. “This is a bit of a long game for us, but we do feel like it's a really good way in.”

Changing the game for advertisers

NBCU’s Olympics evolution didn’t just expand access for viewers, but for advertisers too. This Olympics offered programmatic buying for the first time and NBC broke an Olympic ad-sales record, with digital revenue double that of the Tokyo Games.

The top two advertisers running programmatic ads experienced between 94% and 96% incremental reach on Peacock during the Olympics compared to ads on other ad-supported streamers, according to AdExchanger.

Major brands returned to the Olympics in a big way. Nike, for instance, said it would spend more on this year’s Games than any previous Olympics, and it seemed to help drive visits to its direct-to-consumer site, according to Reuters.

But smaller brands with little-to-no Olympics experience benefited, too, with 70% of advertisers being new to the Olympics.

NBCU Ad President Alison Levin previously told The Current Podcast that this year’s games were “creating and opening up a new door to advertisers that maybe have not been able to access the properties before.”