Advertisement

Paris Olympics On Pace For Record Ad Revenue, NBCUniversal Says

dade hayes
·3 min read

The Summer Olympics in Paris are poised to set a record for advertising revenue, according to NBCUniversal.

Dan Lovinger, President of Olympic & Paralympic Partnerships at NBCU, said $1.2 billion has been collected to date, which is just shy of the all-time mark.

More from Deadline

“The new record is coming,” Lovinger said Tuesday during a media conference call, and it should come “quite shortly.” About $350 million of the current haul is from new Olympic advertisers, he noted.

Among the factors driving interest from advertisers, Lovinger said, are surging momentum for women’s sports, growth at Peacock, and strong awareness that the Olympics occupy prime real estate in terms of live tune-in. While the Games will be several hours ahead of the U.S., the Paris setting will have inherent appeal even to casual viewers, the company believes.

With ESPN shattering records with its coverage of the Women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament and ratings on the rise for the WNBA, Lovinger noted that half of NBCU’s primetime coverage in Paris will feature women. “We’ve seen advertisers specifically come to the Olympics to reach women,” he said, as well as sponsors looking to “support woman athletes.”

Inventory is nearly sold out, with retail, consumer packaged goods, financial services and entertainment among the categories showing strength, NBCU said. Next week, the company will announce a handful of brands that have committed to 100-day campaigns stretching from this month through the Opening Ceremony in July 26.

Paris will also be the first edition of the Summer Games offered as a full offering on Peacock. The streaming outlet launched in 2020 during the early onset of Covid. The Tokyo Olympics wound up being held the following year, and NBCU came in for criticism for its reluctance to populate its streaming service with Olympic fare. Three years later, Peacock will be wall-to-wall with every event viewable live during the Games, following NBCU’s course-correction with the Beijing Winter Games in 2022.

Since Beijing, Lovinger noted, “the scale or Peacock has also grown significantly.” As of the end of 2023, the service had 31 million paid subscribers. Live sports, including the NFL, golf and the Premier League, have become mainstays on Peacock, but Lovinger said demand in streaming “has not cannibalized linear” and the company expects “a similar trend in the Olympics.”

The option for advertisers to target messages to Peacock has “democratized” the Olympic opportunity, Lovinger said. When you can direct messages from “one to few instead of one to everybody, it really opens up the aperture.”

Given the timing of the Paris Games in between the Democratic and Republican conventions, Lovinger was asked if political advertising would spill into the Olympics. “We intend for these Games to be red, white and blue, not red or blue,” he said, indicating that local stations would benefit most from swing-state campaign spending.

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.