With the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in the rearview, it is undeniable that the quadrennial event brought significant attention to NBC’s streaming platform, Peacock. Since 2011, NBCUniversal has held exclusive U.S. broadcasting rights for the Olympic Games, an agreement in effect until 2032. Undoubtedly, this contract was on the minds of executives as Peacock debuted in 2020. Out of the gate, the platform sought to jump into the original content arena with series like Dr. Death and Poker Face. While these titles received critical acclaim, the releases seemed to have had little effect on wrangling new subscribers. As of July, the platform has an estimated 34 million subscribers — modest when compared to its competitors.
A lot was riding on Peacock as the Paris Summer Olympics began on July 26. Following the opening ceremony on the gilded Seine River, the platform rolled out comprehensive live coverage and replays of every event the games offered. Its cutting-edge format was accessible and showcased the potential of live sports on streaming platforms. Online streaming of the Olympics was a home run for NBCUniversal, who reported 4.5 million views for their Saturday, 7/27 coverage alone. To put this in perspective, the highest streamed film this week was Apple TV’s The Instigators, which accumulated 2.5 million views across seven days. Did this high engagement help boost viewership for Peacock’s original programming? Luminate’s Streaming Viewership (M) was able to answer the question right out of the proverbial Olympic gates.
The title that Peacock was most overtly marketing leading up to the 2024 Olympic Games was the Anthony Hopkins-led Those About To Die. The gladiator drama, created by Falling Skies showrunner Robert Rodat, was produced for $150 million dollars, with much of the budget going to intricate production design and gritty special effects. Set in Ancient Rome’s Circus Maximus and Colosseum, the series harkens to the aesthetics of the Olympic Games themselves. The release of all 10 episodes a week before the opening ceremony was a clear strategy to get Olympics viewers engaged with the platform’s scripted content.
Immediately following its 7/18 premiere date, the series performed moderately well. Its first episode netted a cumulative 80 million minutes watched in its first four days. Viewership of the series dropped off after 7/21, as a lot of attention was turning to the preliminary coverage of the Olympic games. On 7/27, Peacock’s peak day of Olympics viewership, Those About To Die saw an increase of 6 million minutes watched before enduring a modest 70% decline in the week following.
When looking at the performance of Peacock’s other scripted titles, almost all saw a sizable increase in viewership across the first three days of the Olympic Games. Notable titles include high-octane comedy Twisted Metal and historical-romance The Tattooist of Auschwitz, both seeing an increase in minutes-watched by over 100%.
This data reveals a success story for NBCUniversal. While the platform has not been able to amass a subscriber base on the caliber of Netflix and Prime Video, Peacock has mastered a different angle of the streaming wars. The increase in engagement for the platform’s scripted content verifies that there is value in hosting high-profile sporting events on a platform. Looking ahead, NBCUniversal is set to broadcast the 2028 and 2032 Olympics as well as the 2026, 2030 and 2034 Superbowls. This leaves the media giant with a regular cadence of sporting events over the next decade, which will be sure to bring attention to their streaming platform. If Peacock doubles down on investing in both sports and quality scripted content, then the platform could become a more serious streaming competitor.
