The 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris marked a resurgence in “primetime” viewership, with an average of 30.7 million people tuning in across all NBC Platforms (more about why primetime is in quotes a bit later). Nearly twice the viewership average of the 2021 Summer Games in Tokyo (sure, no fans due to COVID-19 restrictions didn’t help), you’d still need to go back to 2012 in London to find an Olympics, Summer or Winter, that was higher rated. Global pandemics aside, there are two key factors influencing this trend reversal, as well as some of the possible reasons NBCU locked in the rights to cover it for years to come.
The Olympics Show that Sports Rights Are Worth It
