NBC Projects More Than $1.25 Billion in Ads for Paris Olympics

Brian Steinberg

NBCUniversal expects to secure a new high in advertising support for its Paris Olympics, giving it confidence in a new programming strategy that will put every live event on its streaming Peacock hub while reserving primetime on NBC for a curated showcase that will mix replays of athletic events with celebrity cameos and features on athletes.

“We are highly confident we will set a new record in ad revenue,” said Dan Lovinger, an NBCUniversal president who oversees ad-sales efforts tied to the Olympics and Paralympics, in remarks delivered Tuesday. He said NBCU had already notched $1.2 billion in advertising commitments for the Games. NBCU is believed to have sold around $1.25 billion in national advertising related to its 2021 broadcast of the Olympics Games in Tokyo.

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Advertisers have snapped up all the commercial inventory tied to both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, Lovinger said, across both traditional TV and digital video. The company has also sold 13 different “Prime Pods” slated for the Olympics, or a single sponsorship of a half hour in primetime otherwise airs commercial-free. More than $350 million of the commitments secured so far has come from advertisers who have not previously bought Olympics time, according to the executive.

The numbers suggest a robust start to an event that NBC hopes is markedly different from a series of Olympics Games that were broadcast from Asia under somewhat onerous circumstances. The Tokyo Olympics were postponed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic and did not have fans in the stands, cutting back much of the spectacle’s televised appeal. Other recent Olympics broadcast from Beijing and PyeongChang were marred by concerns about global affairs. And time-zone differences with the U.S. made many of NBCU’s live broadcasts and streams hard to catch by the larger part of the potential audience.

Paris offers new possibilities, including an easier management of time differences between Europe and the U.S. NBC hopes to take advantage of the locale with more celebrities and influencers woven into its programming and a new navigation system on Peacock.

Lovinger indicated advertisers were interested in standbys such as gymnastics and swimming, but also in telecasts that would feature female athletes, a nod to the outsize ratings performance in recent days by broadcasts of the NCAA women’s basketball championship tournament on Disney’s ESPN.

Retailers, financial-services firms, big consumer products marketers and entertainment advertisers were all seen investing in Olympics advertising, he said. It’s possible that Republicans or Democrats could seek to place political ads in the 2024 Games as the next U.S. presidential election draws closer, he acknowledged, though much of that activity was likely to be put into local inventory in swing-state markets.

NBC hopes to keep the Olympics from being a partisan event, Lovinger said. “There is a real intent for the Games to be red white and blue, and not red or blue,” he added.

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