With one of the world’s preeminent cities hosting, the Opening Ceremony of the Summer Olympics delivered a massive audience by any standard — but especially by the diminished standards of recent years.
Friday’s Opening Ceremony of the Paris Summer Olympics averaged 28.6 million viewers on NBC and Peacock (per Nielsen fast-nationals and Adobe Analytics), up 60 percent from the COVID-delayed Tokyo Opening Ceremony three years ago (17.9M), up 8% from Rio in 2016 (26.5M), and the highest for any Olympic Opening Ceremony since London in 2012.
Viewership encompasses both the live afternoon broadcast and primetime replay. NBC did not disclose how many viewers watched the live broadcast versus the primetime encore.
The Opening Ceremony likely benefited from the familiarity many Americans have with Paris, one of the world’s most iconic cities; the unusual spectacle of the parade of nations taking place in boats on the river Seine; a return to normalcy after two-straight COVID-affected Games; and a musical performance by the ailing singer Celine Dion, making her first performance since a recent and highly-publicized diagnosis.
It also no doubt benefited from the addition of Nielsen out-of-home viewing, which was not factored into the company’s viewership estimates until 2020.
For the year, the Opening Ceremony ranks as the most-watched sporting event on any network outside of the NFL, topping the Michigan-Alabama College Football Playoff semifinal at the Rose Bowl on ESPN January 1 (27.8M). Keep in mind the Rose Bowl figure is Nielsen-only. Excluding the Adobe Analytics-measured streaming audience of 2.5 million, the Opening Ceremony would clock in lower at around 26.1 million. (Official Nielsen estimates are expected to be released Monday).
