The Olympic Games in Tokyo don’t begin for nearly another eight months, but NBC is well on its way to outdoing the advertising success it saw for the 2016 Games in Rio. The network has already sold $1 billion in advertising for the Summer Games and projects that it will easily surpass the $1.2 billion it generated for the 2016 Summer Games.
2016 is the most successful Olympics on record for NBC from an ad sales standpoint. That means there are plenty of smiling faces at 30 Rock when they see 2020 sales projections.
The network will provide 7000 hours of programming during the three week event. It is also not differentiating between digital and linear viewers. NBC will air ads across multiple platforms. In total, it is expecting more than 200 million viewers for the 2020 Summer Olympics.
“Sports continues to bring large audiences together and really the pinnacle of that is the Olympics,” Mark Marshall, president of ad sales and partnerships at NBC Universal, told Front Office Sports. “The nice part is we continue to hear from advertisers that regardless of their investment, it actually makes an impact not only on sales but also employee engagement.”
Front Office Sports also reports that NBC is opening new doors with Olympics advertising. More than half of the companies that have already bought advertising during the Tokyo Olympics are new to the event.
NBC should be reaping the rewards of the Olympics for a long time. In 2014, the network paid $7.75 billion to secure the television rights to both the Summer and Winter Games through 2032.
