The 2024 Olympics in Paris will be one of the most controversial and memorable sporting events of this century. Television and digital platform viewership numbers broke all records. Together, they stand for a new chapter in television history. The opening ceremony was watched by 24.4 million people, including 1.2 million through video-on-demand (VOD) services, making it the highest-rated event ever shown on French televisions, but also one of the highest on NBCU platforms. The 16-day Paris 2024 Olympics ended with an average viewership that was 82% higher than the Tokyo Games. How did this translate to road cycling viewership numbers?
Record-Breaking Numbers Thanks to Gymnastics, Swimming, and Basketball
As anticipated, on weekends — especially Sundays — the number of people watching the games increased dramatically. It’s no surprise that July 28 set a record for the highest daily viewership of any day during the 2024 Olympics: a staggering 41.5 million viewers tuned in. In fact, that day’s lineup – when Biles dominated women’s gymnastics qualification and Americans won gold in swimming and rugby – drew nearly twice as many viewers as Tokyo’s opening Sunday did. The 2024 Games’ top four most viewed days aligned with women’s gymnastic competitions. July 28th was the female qualification round and Suni Lee took home the bronze medal for uneven bars on August 4th, which attracted an audience of 35.4 million viewers.
In the next few days, the ratings for the Games dropped off a bit; Friday, Aug. 9 marked the least-watched day of these Olympics so far with 25.6 million viewers (not including the 20.9 million who watched the Closing Ceremony). It was barely behind Wednesday, Aug. 7, which had the second-smallest audience of any day with 25.7 million viewers.
However, when Team USA won gold in men’s basketball against France on Aug. 10 it smashed records: The game brought in 19.5 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, making it the most-watched gold medal game since Atlanta in 1996. In a nutshell, gymnastics, swimming and basketball dominated in numbers.
Cycling in Numbers
Now for the big question: How did the cycling at the Olympics do? Road cycling certainly was a big event, and is one of the major Olympic sports. This year, the men and women’s road races starting point was at the Pont d’Iena, the bridge across the River Seine which was ordered by Napoleon to mark his triumph at Jena. It links the Trocadéro on the Right Bank, where the opening ceremony was held. The races then took the cyclists into the French countryside, before returning to Paris once more. The scenic surroundings certainly helped boost the viewership rates. The races also attracted a huge live audience – around half a million spectators stood along the streets of Paris. These games also had high television ratings worldwide and were streamed on the internet; however, the exact number of international viewers has not been released yet. The scenic course that went by famous landmarks throughout Paris helped make this event popular, along with having cyclists such as Remco Evenepoel, who ultimately won the gold medal.
If we assume this year’s Olympics will break records in cycling like in other sports, then the numbers will be high. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics had over 8 million people watching the men’s road race just on Eurosport. We can expect equal, or higher numbers for this year’s Olympics.
Streaming Dominated over TV
Even though it’s hard to talk about numbers and audiences, since those usually vary by country. Countries are not interested in the same sports. For the US, we already got a glimpse of some numbers though. Since 2020, when Peacock was launched, the 2024 Games marked the second Summer Olympics and third Olympics overall. Live streaming has gained more popularity than ever before as the favorite way for viewers to watch coverage of these events. Streaming minutes for the 2024 Games reached a total of 23.5 billion minutes, thanks to Peacock. That’s 40% higher than all past Winter and Summer Olympics combined across NBCUniversal digital platforms. They only had 16.8 billion minutes in total. During the event, Paris Prime coverage and U.S. primetime coverage averaged 4.1 million viewers daily across Peacock and NBCU Digital platforms combined. In the first twelve days of the Olympics, for example, the Paris Olympics averaged thirteen million viewers each night on NBC and USA Network.
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