High-profile sports continues to be a major driver for
high-end TV/streaming viewership.
NBCUniversal posted an average 23.5 million viewers for its 17-day Milan Cortina Winter Olympic Games, according to data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics
-- 96% higher than the 2022 Beijing
Olympics (12.0 million), and the strongest results since the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.
Analyst advertising revenue estimates suggest it will go much higher than the $1.2 billion set in the 2022
Beijing Winter Games. For its part, NBCU isn’t releasing specifics just yet other than to say it was the highest advertising revenue ever for any Olympics.
Still, we know that business
outcomes and engagements soared. During the two-and-a-half weeks of the Milan-Cortina games, NBCU says it controlled 82% of all brand search engagements among all broadcast networks with its
platforms.
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Because sports TV programming has become such a leverage lynchpin for many TV/streamers and networks, the question now remains: what real influence do these bigger
events now have heading into the upcoming broader TV/streaming upfront advertising market set to begin in a few months?
Preliminary results seem to be strong. NBC says nearly
70% of advertisers bought into all three of its “Legendary February” sporting events -- the Super Bowl, NBA All-Star Weekend, and the Milan Cortina Olympics.
More than 250
“unique” advertisers bought advertising time in all three.
The Peacock streamer witnessed viewing boosted by 20% boost in viewing over 2024 Paris Summer Olympics -- and
this was especially helpful to NBCU this time around.
Traditionally, many sports-focused marketers lean into high overall viewership, and high-profile sports programming has a huge
percentage of sometimes hard-to-get male viewers -- young men in particular.
Olympics sports programming is valuable -- not just for its high numbers, but in offering a more even
male-female audience balance.
In addition, sports continue to bring in big, live linear TV audiences -- and brands are eager to help them get immediate engagement with audiences.
Bottomline: Analysts say Olympic years typically drive double-digit percentage revenue growth in NBC’s total upfront commitments.
For the last year’s
2025–2026 cycle, for example, NBC saw a 15% year-over-year increase in ad commitments, fueled largely by the return of the Olympics and the NBA.
Can NBC do more? One might also
guess NBCU may have used its leverage for a two year upfront cycle for its platforms -- especially now it has been bolster with a new sport properties the NBA (now its its first season with
NBC/Peacock) -- this teaming with the next season’s NFL “Sunday Night Football” (which will enter its 21st season).
With some analysts talking about slight
overall advertising revenue declines for TV networks and streaming platforms for this year -- around 2% -- you can be sure that strong sports programmers will look for any control in the
advertising game.