NBC Hoping Big Super Bowl Audience Helps Olympics Ratings Dip

It’s been much-hyped, but the day finally came. NBC was home to both the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl on Sunday.

Touted as a very rare instance, NBC was optimistic Feb. 13 would be a monumental day for the network. It was the culmination of a deal NBC and CBS struck in order to avoid CBS having to go head-to-head against the Olympics for audiences.

But so far, the Beijing games have not drawn the numbers NBC wanted. As of Feb. 8, Olympics coverage was averaging 12.3 million viewers per day, down from 23 million in 2018 for the games in PyeongChang, South Korea.

“We’re excited about the impact the Super Bowl will have as we move into the weekend,” NBC Sports Group chairman Pete Bevacqua told the Boston Globe‘s Chad Finn, “and as I like to say to the team, boomerang into next week.”

“We think the Super Bowl is going to provide an unbelievably powerful platform, to have that 100 million-plus audience where we can obviously cover the game and every aspect of what’s been a wonderful NFL season, but also promote the Olympics and promote Week 2 of these Beijing Games,” he added.

An estimated 100 million will tune in for the Super Bowl. It will be interesting to see how much of that audience sticks around when the network transitions into Olympics coverage after the Lombardi Trophy is raised Sunday night.