Twitter, NBC Olympics Extend Content Agreement Through 2022 Games

NBC Olympics and Twitter have extended their content partnership that applied to the 2020 Tokyo Games, now rescheduled to 2021, through the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022. 

Most aspects of the extension are the same as in the original agreement announced in July 2019, NBC said. 

Key elements of the agreement include an original, live 20-minute studio program every morning from Tokyo that will air exclusively on Twitter; daily live look-ins of primetime coverage where users will be able to vote daily on what athlete, sport or moment they want to see; real-time highlights thorough each competition day; and content for a pre-Game countdown starting in June 2021 and running until the Tokyo Opening Ceremony on July 23, with a similar version for Beijing. 

“We can’t wait to join forces with a fantastic content partner like NBC Olympics to pair real-time Twitter conversation with premium sports action to give fans a unique real-time Olympics experience they won’t find anywhere else,” Twitter Head of Sports Partnerships TJ Adeshola said in the announcement. 

NBC Olympics will still “lead the sales process” for ads under the agreement, with Twitter providing “sales resources,” NBC said. All content will appear on the @NBCOlympics Twitter account, sold as Twitter in-stream sponsorships by NBC Olympics.

“Extending our now multi-Games relationship with Twitter to Tokyo for the Summer Games in 2021 and Winter Games in 2022 from Beijing will again put NBC Olympics’ coverage in front of the vast and very active Twitter audience with great Olympic moments, great Olympic programming and a nightly peek into our primetime broadcast for those not yet in front of their televisions,” NBC Olympics President Gary Zenkel said. “This agreement also allows us to extend the reach of our Olympic advertisers to those audiences that view the content we have custom produced for Twitter.”

In 2011, NBCUniversal agreed to a $4.38 billion deal with the International Olympic Committee to broadcast every Olympics through 2020, then in 2014, extended that through 2032 in a $7.75 billion deal. But the broadcaster only has to pay 5-10% of the deal up front, with the rest coming when the each games actually occur, according to a Bloomberg report.