One of the biggest questions hanging over the 2022 Winter Olympics is how much interest there would be in the Beijing Games and how that would affect NBC’s ratings.
Does the Winter Olympics have any chance of matching the 2021 Tokyo Games’ average viewership of 15.8 million, the smallest number ever for an Olympics? (Although Nielsen’s undercounting of out-of-home viewers during that time has to be factored in slightly.) The previous Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea drew an average audience of 19.8 million, which was the previous low.
Unfortunately, the Beijing Games aren’t off to a very good start, ratings-wise. Those who projected a low number are looking pretty smart right now.
According to NBC (via Variety), Friday’s opening ceremony drew 16 million viewers across TV and streaming platforms. That’s a 43 percent drop from the 28.3 million who tuned in for the 2018 PyeongChang opening ceremony.
Last summer’s Tokyo opening ceremonies drew an audience of 17 million. As Variety‘s Jennifer Maas points out, that was the lowest U.S. TV audience for an Olympics opening ceremony in 33 years. Beijing’s number has now come in even lower. NBC streamed the festivities live on Peacock at 6:30 a.m. ET Friday and aired the event in primetime on network TV.
The Beijing Winter Games suffered from plenty of bad publicity going into the event, including China’s human rights violations, a diplomatic boycott by the U.S., no international spectators, and broadcasters working remotely from NBC Studios in Connecticut. Add a 13-hour time difference in Beijing and there has been plenty of reason for pessimism.
So far, the ratings for the 2022 Winter Olympics are meeting those lowered expectations.
Ian Casselberry is a sports media columnist for BSM. He has previously written and edited for Awful Announcing, The Comeback, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation. You can find him on Twitter @iancass or reach him by email at iancass@gmail.com.
