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The Paris Olympics concluded the 2024 Summer Games with a highly viewed Closing Ceremony that doubled that of the Tokyo audience.
The Sunday event, which featured an elaborate stunt from Tom Cruise as France passed the baton to Los Angeles for the 2028 Olympics, brought in 20.8 million viewers across NBC, Peacock and other NBCUniversal platforms, according to data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.
While viewership for the Closing Ceremony was down 27.3% from the Opening Ceremony for the Paris Olympics, the concluding event more than doubled the Closing Ceremony for the Tokyo 2021 Games, which brought in 9.8 million viewers (viewership for the Paris Olympics has consistently outpaced that of the Tokyo Games).
The Opening Ceremony, which aired live from the River Seine in Paris, scored a viewership of 28.6 million viewers across NBC and Peacock — up 60% from the 17.9 million viewers who tuned in for the last Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony during the COVID pandemic.
Over the course of the Games — which included 7,000 hours of coverage and 329 events in and around Paris (and Tahiti) — the 2024 Olympics averaged 30.6 million crossplatform viewers across the combined live Paris Prime and U.S. primetime schedules — up 82% from the 16.9 million viewers averaged by the Tokyo Olympics — according to fast national data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.
On streaming platforms alone, coverage of the Paris Olympics tallied up 23.5 billion minutes, led by Peacock. That’s up 40% from all prior Olympics Games combined (summer or winter), which brought in 16.8 billion minutes across NBCUniversal digital platforms.
NBCUniversal-owned platforms also saw boosts from the Games, with NBC extending its streak as primetime’s No. 1 show for the 152nd consecutive night of Summer Olympics coverage, while USA Network ranked as the most-watched cable sports/entertainment network in both total day and primetime viewership over the two weeks of competition.
“From the Opening Ceremony procession down the River Seine through more than two weeks of heart-stopping competition culminating this past weekend with Team USA’s gold rush in men’s and women’s basketball, women’s soccer and track & field relays, these Olympics have captivated Americans in huge numbers across NBCUniversal platforms,” NBC Sports president Rick Cordella said in a statement. “Led by our best-in-class engineering and production teams in Paris and Stamford, a staff of more than 3,000 worked tirelessly to present these reimagined Games in new and innovative ways in all dayparts and on all platforms. We are thrilled that Americans embraced and enjoyed the Paris Olympics as much as we have.”
