The United States closed the Olympic Games Paris 2024 attaining a total of 40 gold medals among individual athletes and team efforts. In the waning days of the games ahead of the country hosting the international sporting tournament from Los Angeles in four years, Team USA garnered top accolades in men’s basketball, women’s basketball and women’s soccer, continuing dominant stretches and making new history in the process. NBCUniversal continued presenting its comprehensive, multiplatform coverage of the Games through Sunday’s closing ceremony and realized strong viewership to complete the venture.
As it pertains to men’s basketball, guard Stephen Curry delivered a 24-point performance on eight three-point baskets to help Team USA secure its fifth straight Olympic gold medal and 17th such honor overall. Forward LeBron James was named the most valuable player of the Olympic Games, the first time he received the honor, and earned his third Olympic gold medal.
The gold medal game against France, in which both teams were separated by three points with under three minutes to play, averaged 19.5 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, according to fast national data from Nielsen Media Research and Adobe Analytics. Approximately 2.7 million viewers streamed the game on Peacock, while 16.8 million watched via linear television, according to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch.
These metrics render the contest as the most-watched gold medal game since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. A peak of 22.7 million viewers tuned in to the game between 5 and 5:15 p.m. EST, concurrent with the quarter-hour in which Team USA defeated its competition. Noah Eagle, Dwyane Wade and LaChina Robinson were on the call for the matchup, forming a lead broadcast team just about a year before the company returns to broadcasting
NBA games under a new 11-year media rights deal.
Along with his prowess on the court, Curry’s new comedy series, Mr. Throwback, was ranked as the No. 1 comedy series on Peacock this past Friday. All six episodes of the project, which was produced by Unanimous Media, are available to stream on the platform. Comcast recently reported an increase in Peacock subscribers in the last fiscal quarter that brought the total to 33 million users utilizing the OTT streaming platform.
Earlier in the day, the gold medal victory in soccer for the U.S. Women’s National Team registered an average of 9.0 million viewers on NBC and Peacock. The matchup spanned from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. EST and became the most-watched gold medal soccer game since the 2004 Athens Olympics. This matchup aired outside of the prime time windows spanning from 2 to 5 p.m. EST (Paris) and 8 to 11 p.m. EST (United States), which collected a 16-day total audience delivery average of 31.3 million viewers up to Saturday, up 82% from the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.
NBCUniversal’s complete presentation of the final Saturday of Paris Olympics competition on NBC, Peacock and other NBCUniversal digital platforms amassed a total audience delivery of 30.7 million viewers. This nearly tripled the average audience of 11.7 million viewers for the comparable Saturday of competition from the last Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. Legendary broadcasters Bob Costas and Al Michaels joined host Mike Tirico from the network studios at the Musee de l’Homme to reminisce on the past games, reflect on the success of Paris and look forward to the upcoming Olympic events in Milan and Los Angeles.
