Since NBC first acquired the rights in 1988, the Summer Olympics has been a star athlete in the network’s roster. This year, parent company NBCUniversal hopes the Paris games, which kick off on July 26, will boost its struggling streaming service, Peacock, with wall-to-wall coverage and exclusive content it lacked during previous games.
NBC will make all of its 2024 Olympics coverage available on Peacock, including some bonus and specialty shows, marking a fresh start for the network after executives acknowledged its two previous Olympics broadcasts were “significantly challenged” and “impaired” by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We had Peacock in play and it was part of our coverage in Tokyo, and then again in Beijing, but in Tokyo, frankly, we didn’t do a very good job for our customers,” Mark Lazarus, NBCUniversal’s Media Group Chairman who oversees streaming, told reporters last month.