NBC Sports and Twitter are hoping for Olympic-size audience lifts through their extended content pact to cover both the postponed Tokyo Olympics set for summer 2021 and the Beijing Olympic Winter Games in February 2022.
Most elements of the extended pact are the same as in the original agreement, announced last year for Tokyo 2020 (before the games were delayed by COVID-19). All content will live on the @NBCOlympics handle on Twitter, available to users on the U.S. As with the original agreement, NBC Sports will lead the sales for the Olympic Games content, sold as Twitter in-stream sponsorships, with Twitter providing sales support.
The rescheduled Tokyo Summer Olympics are set to run July 23-Aug. 8, 2021, while the Beijing Winter Olympics are slated for Feb. 4-20, 2022.
Twitter and NBC Sports will work together to distribute NBC Olympics’ coverage of the Tokyo and Beijing events on the social network by creating daily, original programming on Twitter live from each host city, plus a daily poll that will allow fans on Twitter to choose one live look-in to NBC’s Primetime or Primetime Plus broadcasts each night, and real-time video highlights throughout each competition day.
The deal covering Tokyo 2021 and Beijing 2022 “will again put NBC Olympics’ coverage in front of the vast and very active Twitter audience with great Olympic moments, great Olympic programming and a nightly peek into our primetime broadcast for those not yet in front of their televisions,” Gary Zenkel, president, NBC Olympics, said in a statement.
The content under the deal will include:
- Live studio programming: Each morning from Tokyo, NBC Sports will produce a 20-minute original live studio program exclusively on Twitter, focusing on highlights, athlete interviews, and happenings in and around the host city. NBC Sports will also produce a similar daily program for Twitter, with elements live from Beijing.
- Daily live look-ins powered by Twitter votes: For the first time, Olympic fans will have the opportunity to watch a daily live look-in of NBC Olympics’ Primetime or Primetime Plus coverage on Twitter — voting on which athlete, sporting event or moment they’d like to watch in a daily Twitter poll announced during the morning’s live show.
- Real-time highlights: During the both 2021 Summer and 2022 Winter Games, NBC Olympics will clip the most memorable moments of the day and publish them on Twitter throughout each competition day, including some Spanish-language clips. Highlights will include medal-winning moments as well those from the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.
- Pre-games content: Beginning in June 2021 and counting down until the Tokyo Opening Ceremony on July 23, 2021, NBC Olympics will provide Twitter with real-time highlights of its Olympic sport coverage, including the U.S. Olympic Team Trials. NBC will produce similar countdown content for Beijing 2022.
NBC Sports has produced every Olympic Summer Games since 1998 and every Winter Games since 2002. NBCUniversal owns U.S. media rights across all platforms to all Olympic Games through 2032.
Pictured above: The Olympic rings for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, rescheduled for summer 2021, pass by on a barge off the Odaiba Marine Park in Tokyo
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