By JOE REEDY, AP Sports Writer
The Milan Cortina Olympics averaged 23.5 million viewers in the United States, making them the most-watched Winter Games since 2014 with a 96% larger audience than the Beijing Games four years ago.
NBCUniversal said the average includes combined audiences on NBC, Peacock, CNBC, USA Network and other digital platforms. It covered the live afternoon (2-5 p.m. EST) and prime-time (8-11 p.m. EST/PST) windows.
The figures are based on Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel ratings (through Feb. 19), Nielsen’s early figures for the final three days (Feb. 20-22) and digital data from Adobe Analytics.
Viewership numbers for the United States’ 2-1 overtime victory over Canada in men’s hockey on Sunday morning were not expected until Tuesday. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation said on Monday that 8.7 million were watching in Canada when Jack Hughes scored the golden goal in overtime.
“I feel in so many ways that these Winter Olympics exceeded our expectations. We were reminded that the Olympics are the most exciting, unpredictable and biggest stage in sports,” said Molly Solomon, the executive producer of NBC’s Olympics coverage. “And what I think came together in Italy was that the settings were stunningly beautiful, the access we had to the athletes and their lives was unprecedented. And then you take the technology, the first-person view drones, the audio, and it took the audience inside the stories in fresh, meaningful ways.
“And Team USA, I mean, the results, you’ve seen the numbers for the medals and things. America wants to see how their team’s performing, and it’s the best performance in an overseas Olympics. Everything lived up to the billing, and some of the superstars had riveting, dramatic performances. Not all of them gold, but that’s the Olympics, right?”
NBC broadcast the Super Bowl, the Olympics and the NBA All-Star Game in February, the first time a network had all three in one month. It also premiered “Sunday Night Basketball” on Feb. 1.
According to Nielsen, 215.6 million U.S. viewers tuned in for at least one of those events. Audience reach numbers have been higher under Nielsen’s new rating system since the minimum viewing requirement was reduced from 5 to 3 minutes.
Super Bowl 60 averaged 125.6 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, and Telemundo, the second-most-watched program in U.S. history. The All-Star Game had its highest audience in 15 years, averaging 8.8 million, and the Lakers-Knicks game on Feb. 1 averaged 4.5 million.
“I have to say it’s probably better than we expected. This doesn’t happen through luck or happenstance. This happens through just really good planning and then execution across the month. So really happy overall and I don’t think it could have gone better, honestly,” NBC Sports President Rick Cordella said.
AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports
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