It’s that time again where the world comes together for the Olympics. This summer, it will take place in Paris, France, for the third Games ever there but their first in 100 years.
NBCUniversal, the company whose networks and platforms will broadcast the Olympics, sure hopes the “City of Love” and romanticism of its classic backdrops help Incentivise interest in these particular Games. To reflect the aura of Paris, the Olympic Opening Ceremony will do something unprecedented. In lieu of a stadium, the athletes will travel on boats along the River Seine towards the Trocadero, the open plaza overseeing the Eiffel Tower. The famous tall landmark will also be featured nearby for the sport of beach volleyball.
But not only will the Parisian scenery alone be the stand out. Executives and organizers are going all out impress the globe with the start of these Olympics. Music superstars Lady Gaga and, for her triumphant return to the stage, Céline Dion will perform at the opening ceremony.
The Paris Games arrive at a time when two forms of media consumption are continually trending in opposite directions, at accelerated rates since the 2020 pandemic — the decline of linear television viewing, while over-the-top (Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, etc.) and online engagement (social media, gaming) are becoming more omnipresent. Sports themselves are among the remaining few bastions of must-see, in-the-moment mass appeal events, placing a premium on its value.
Enhancing that value this summer will be the plethora of American Olympic stars, most of whom female: gymnasts Simone Biles and Suni Lee (their successes lifting the U.S. Olympic trials to its most-watched night since 2016), swimmer Katie Ledecky, sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson, and for better or for worse (because WNBA stars Caitlin Clark, Arike Ogunbowale and Angel Reese are absent), the U.S. women’s basketball team featuring A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Diana Turasi, Sabrina Ionescu and Brittney Griner.
Perhaps as a nod to those who consume much scripted content on Netflix or Hulu or HBO, etc., NBC is fashioning these Games like a movie. The Olympians, especially those aforementioned, are in starring roles. Legendary film director Steven Spielberg himself will narrate the introduction to “The Olympics” — a moniker describing it as an entity instead of just another Summer Olympics. And, the plot lines involved among the events are highly promoted.
The three most recent Olympics – two Winter (PyeongChang, South Korea in 2018 and Beijing, Communist China in 2022) and one Summer (Tokyo, Japan in 2021) – were hosted on the continent of Asia where it were 12-14 hours ahead. Yet, some of the highlighted Olympic events were strategically scheduled there so they could air live in prime time in the U.S.
Because it will be 2 a.m. local time in Paris when NBC prime time begins on the East Coast, there will not be opportunity for a live sporting event telecast. Thus, the network will place more of an emphasis on telling the stories of the athletes and events during their nightly “Primetime in Paris” showcase. Hip-hop legend Snoop Dogg will be the network’s most prominent celebrity Olympic commentator, joining prime time host Mike Tirico to offer his unique take on the Games.
The Olympics themselves do not hold the same drawing power nor linger in the zeitgeist as in decades past. Compared to past Olympics, Paris 2024 will not average nearly as many viewers than even its editions of the 2010’s had drawn. Olympic prime time no longer attracts equal or more than an NFL regular-season late Sunday afternoon window.
Nonetheless, considering the current media landscape where the amount of audiences for regularly-scheduled programming has hugely eroded, the Olympics will be the supreme force on TV from July 26 thru August 11. Advertisers still highly covet the Olympics, and will probably love Paris 2024 as it may be the most dominant Summer Games to-date, relative to its broadcast competition.
The pandemic-delayed Tokyo 2020 Games in the summer of 2021 averaged 15.6 million viewers each night, a steep 42 percent drop from Rio 2016. But like almost every event in 2021, COVID-19 had a profound negative effect upon it, from the scarce amount of spectators in the stands to positive COVID test results of the athletes preventing them from competition. Thus, about every one of those events, sporting (except the NFL, of course) and non-sporting (Oscars, Grammys), then dipped to record-low viewerships.
COVID is still a concern today but thanks to medicine, not nearly so than three years ago. The Paris Olympics will have the look and feel of a pre-pandemic Games, accentuated by the city of Paris itself, one of the signature romantic cities of the world. In addition, these will be the first Summer Olympics to benefit from Nielsen Media Research’s extensive out-of-home viewer tabulations. This all seems to line up towards a rebound in Olympic viewer figures. Or, at the very least, a relatively steady viewer level from Tokyo which, these days, is considered a ratings win.
I inquired with professionals in the media industry to provide their ratings prognostications for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. Here is their analysis — you may also observe their guesses in numerical order:
Marc Berman, Editor-in-Chief of Programming Insider
17.4 million. Given the choppy political waters at present, we need an escape and we will find it courtesy of the Summer Olympics from Paris. Although the norm is audience erosion, this will likely avoid that trend and pick up plenty of steam.
Mark Cuban, “Shark Tank” entrepreneur/Dallas Mavericks owner
14.7m. I think women’s sports resurgence will help carry the numbers higher.
David Barron, former Houston Chronicle sports media columnist
I am not enamored at first glance of the new “Primetime in Paris” concept and probably will stick mostly with the Peacock live streams during the day. But maybe it will grow on me. I’ll guess 23.5 million for the primetime combo.
Dan Cohen, Senior Vice President of Octagon Sports and Entertainment Network
Paris is a stunning backdrop for this Summer’s games. The time zone is also more favorable compared to the last 3 editions in Asia. However, with the shift of a significant amount of content thus marketing buzz/halo effect moved to Peacock, I think linear viewership is tepid at best. 14.7m is my guess.
Scott Nolte, Northwest Iowa Y100.1 FM (KUYY) deejay-sports announcer
18.3 million. I think it will trend back up after a weird COVID Olympics in 2021. The big named athletes, especially on the female side, will help push viewership.
Jonathan Tannenwald, chief soccer correspondent for The Philadelphia Inquirer
I’ll go 17.5 million.
There’s definitely going to be an increase in interest in these Olympics, between the stars and Paris and the end of the pandemic. But it’s hard to know how many people will watch the prime time show, since NBC will have so much live coverage on the broadcast network during the day. Which is a good thing!
And I don’t mind using an exclamation point, because your readers know I’ve long been an Olympics nut and am thrilled there will be no more hiding things until prime time.
Also, as a soccer person, I’ve seen plenty of proof that Americans are happy to watch live sports on linear television on weekday afternoons. I think these Olympics will get a lot of viewership, but let’s see how much of it is during the afternoon versus at night.
Jason Jacobs, Northwest Iowa Campus Radio 103.9 (KUOO) sports announcer
15.9 million viewers. I think the games will go slightly above Tokyo. Covid was a real drain on the past two Olympics. While TV viewing keeps declining, several other big events have come back in the ratings since then. I think the Olympics will too.
Ken Fang, Awful Announcing
After some poor numbers from the last two Asian time zone Olympics, we get a more time zone-friendly Olympics for NBC.
The 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo average 15.5 million while the Olympics in Communist China averaged 11.4 million, extremely low for NBC.
We should see the numbers bounce back. Based on the good numbers for the Olympic Trials which were up 38% in ’21, I’ll go with an average 18.7 million for the Paris Olympics. This being a mostly-streamed Games, Peacock will also see record numbers for the events.
Bill Shea, former senior writer at The Athletic
Predicting Olympic viewership is a challenge because of time zones and the ongoing evolution of how viewers choose to consume such content amid the proliferation of technology and options. And in 2024, is there a U.S. Olympics storyline that penetrates the American political news? The U.S. women’s hoops squad doesn’t have the two most talked-about WNBA rookies, so that may sap interest. The opening ceremonies will get eyeballs, but I’m skeptical of the overall average topping Tokyo in the pandemic-delayed games in 2021. Didn’t we just do this, it feels like. I’ll call it 15 million for the overall average, with a range of 11 million to 17 million as not being a surprise to me.
Richard Deitsch, sports media columnist at The Athletic and host of the Sports Media podcast
Call be a hopeless romantic about the City of Light, but I’m high on these Paris Games as an Olympic reset. The viewership days of the 2016 Rio Olympics are long gone, especially on linear platforms, but I think Paris tops the COVID-moved Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which averaged 15.6 million viewers in prime time across NBC Universal platforms. Put me down for an average of 16.2 million viewers in primetime. On a separate note, hearing “La Marseillaise” over the next three weeks is going to be cool. Just a great national anthem.
Daniel Kaplan, sports business reporter at The Athletic
The Summer Olympics will easily surpass the 2021 Tokyo OLY and challenge the Rio figures, and I predict will exceed it and top 28 million. The reason: people want a distraction from politics and all the bad news we are innundated with. Americans will also will want to rally around something most can agree on. Deeper acceptance of streaming also helps.
Jason Yellin, Associate Athletics Director & Strategic Communications Officer at University of Maryland
It is exciting to see the Olympics back on display in its full form with fans in the stands with the backdrop of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Paris. The visuals on NBC and its networks will be unparalleled coupled with a star-studded American line-up of athletes, I think we will have the highest viewership since 2016 with a number around 20 million.
Steve Kaplowitz, afternoon sports talk radio host at 600 ESPN El Paso (Texas)
18.0 million on NBC+cable+streaming. Viewership will be up from the past two games, but the abundance of streaming choices will keep ratings considerably lower than past years.
Lou D’Ermilio, LOUD Communications, former Senior Vice President of Fox Sports media relations
I’m expecting viewership of roughly 14.0 million. Aside from when Today is on, I’m not sensing a tremendous buzz, so a 10% drop from 2021 seems reasonable.
Jake Kline, attorney/sports media observer
As any ratings guru knows, live programming draws more viewers. When it comes to recent Olympics, NBC has been quite fortunate in this regard, having a succession of host cities in favorable time zones. That lucky streak ends here. This is the first Summer Olympic Games since London 2012 where there will be no live events shown in primetime. That is not ideal, but it is also not an insurmountable obstacle.
The six-hour time difference between NYC and Paris isn’t that bad—events will be shown live throughout the day. In fact, this Olympics will have the most programming hours ever on the NBC broadcast channel. Here’s the kicker: for the data they report to the advertisers, NBC will be combining the mostly live 2 pm et – 5 pm et window with the 8 pm et – 11 pm et window. Of course, Nielsen can still separate out the primetime-only portion.
It goes without saying that the media landscape has undergone enormous changes since the Brits lit the cauldron. It is easier than ever for people to follow along with events in real time on social media. Query whether people in today’s fast-paced world will stick around for NBC’s ‘Primetime in Paris’ storytelling intermixed with prerecorded competitions.
The one year-delayed Tokyo Games were held in empty stadiums and people were struggling to acclimate themselves to the adjusted sport schedule, thrown asunder by the worldwide lockdowns. A return to normalcy hadn’t yet occurred. Hard to glean much from that. Logic would dictate out-of-home (OOH) viewing for Paris will be larger than 2021, a time when many of us were not venturing outside the house that often.
A slight difference: no NBCSN this time. The network was shuttered at the end of 2021. Peacock has added subs since Tokyo, but streaming still makes up a very small figure. The Olympics cannot come soon enough for Peacock: the streamer lost 500,000 subs in Q2.
Another thing has changed too: the interest in women’s sports has grown enormously in the past several years. A few exceptions notwithstanding, nearly all of the most prominent American Olympic athletes—the household names—are women. Historically, the Olympics have performed considerably higher in the female demographic than in many other sports. I expect the percentage of women viewers to be even larger than three years ago. The Gymnastic and Track & Field trials performed quite well, particularly the women’s comps. These disciplines along with Swimming will provide the biggest numbers.
The caveat: in recent weeks, breaking news has interrupted the airwaves on several occasions. These Games begin just outside the 100-day mark to the US presidential election. We’ve learned by now anything can happen. If something does happen, that means less eyeballs will be glued to the goings-on in Paris.
I am an ardent fan of the Olympics and want it to succeed. However, the reality is NBC is not going to be hitting the numbers they had in London or Rio. Can they beat Tokyo? Considering the OOH factor, yes.
My prediction for the primetime-only portion across NBC, cable, and streaming: 17.1 M.
Eric Fisher, Front Office Sports
I’m thinking 24.5 million. Definitely way better than Tokyo, but still a tougher comp to Rio re time zones.
Jon Lewis, Sports Media Watch
I think having most of the live sporting events during the day is a great move by NBC in general (if borne of necessity), but will obviously have a negative impact on the primetime show. I would expect viewership in primetime to come in around the same level as Tokyo in 2021, so somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 million. I’ll say 15.5 million per night.
Drew Lerner, co-host of Sports Media Watch podcast
On the one hand we have the first Olympics outside of Asia in 8 years, meaning a more favorable timezone for the American audience. On the other, we’re getting live dayside programming across the NBC cable nets and Peacock, which could lead to a diminished primetime audience. I also think the lack of *any* live events in primetime will hurt. That said, I think it’ll still be a healthy audience. 14.7m
