2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony, Saturday TV Ratings Way Up

The momentum is back for Olympics viewership. 

The initial two days of data from the Paris Games have supported many of the hopes of NBCUniversal and parent company Comcast, and showed a strong reversal from record lows posted in Tokyo in 2021 and Beijing a year later, in large part because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

NBC Sports said viewership for Friday’s opening ceremony averaged 28.6 million viewers in the U.S. across platforms, marking the best such figure since 2012, and bettering the comparable figure from 2021 by 60%. 

Those numbers were then improved Saturday, the first full day of competition from Paris, as that day averaged 32.4 million viewers across all platforms, 83% better than the comparable figure from Tokyo. Further growth is expected later Monday once numbers arrive from Sunday’s events, including the first game for the U.S. men’s basketball team. 

These numbers, comparable to a top regular-season or wild-card game for the NFL, further reinforce the Olympics as one of the most powerful entities in all of sports media. 

“We are off to a strong start that is in line with the expectations of our NBC stations, and our distribution and advertising partners,” said NBC Sports president Rick Cordella. “We are in a great position as we look forward to the next two weeks of competition.”

Peacock Burst

As had been hoped, the Peacock streaming service has been an increasing driver of the robust initial Olympic viewership numbers. For the opening ceremony, Peacock generated more than 2.5 million viewers, representing the No. 1 entertainment event in the platform’s history. Across all of NBCUniversal’s streaming platforms, including Peacock, the company also generated more than 1 billion minutes of consumption through Friday—six times the comparable figure from Tokyo. 

Saturday, meanwhile, brought 4.7 million viewers to Peacock, marking its second-best day of engagement ever, trailing only an exclusive NFL wild-card game in January that set a U.S. streaming record.  

Water Concerns

Rain in Paris throughout Friday and most of Saturday is now throwing new levels of doubt as to whether the water quality in the Seine will be sufficient to allow for open-water swimming events in the Olympics. Swimming in the Seine has been illegal for a century, but Paris 2024 preparations included a massive clean-up effort in hopes of making it usable for the Games.

But pollution in the Seine, particularly E. coli levels, often increases after heavy rains in the area. Because of that, training in the Seine for upcoming triathlon events was canceled for a second straight day Monday. The latest testing has deemed the water unsafe, but organizers are hoping for improving conditions with the men’s triathlon scheduled for Tuesday and the women’s triathlon due to follow the next day.

“Given the weather forecast for the next 36 hours, Paris 2024 and World Triathlon are confident that water quality will return to below limits before the start of triathlon competitions on July 30,” the two organizations said in a joint statement.