NBC’s already booked $1B+ in Olympic ads, but streaming could be the real gold medal

More like E-lympics... After a year-long pandemic postponement, the 2020 Olympics kick off today in Tokyo — minus the fans. All spectators have been banned from this year's Games, after Japan declared another state of emergency amid rising Covid cases. Despite the lack of IRL viewers, NBCUniversal is poised to win big even before the competition begins:

• On your mark: NBC owns exclusive US broadcast, online, and mobile viewing rights to the Games. Read: it's the only place to watch 'em.
• Get set: But not the TV kind. While TV viewership has been dropping, NBC’s YouTube subscribers jumped 7X during the Rio Games, while 35M engaged with it on Snap.
• Go: For the green gold. With Tokyo, NBC has already beat the $1.2B it earned for Rio ad sales, and expects to surpass Rio's record profit, too.

Think outside the cable box… Four billion people will watch the Olympics somehow, but NBC is getting creative about where and how they engage:

• Peacock-forward: Men’s basketball will be paywalled on NBC’s new streaming platform Peacock. The rest of the Olympic action will be streamable for free.
• Platforms-a-plenty: 7K hours of Olympic coverage will be available across Peacock, NBC’s site, app, and several of its TV channels.
• Social strong: Partnerships with TikTok, Twitch, Snap, and Twitter will feature influencer-studded “side-streams" to draw fans into main-stream coverage.