NBC Blueprint for 2026 Winter Olympics Looks Similar to Plans for Paris

brian steinberg

Wed, 12 Feb 2025, 9:30 am·2-min read

NBC Sports will broadcast the next Winter Olympics from Milan, Italy, but the proceedings are going to have more than a soupcon of plans used recently in Paris, France.

The Comcast-backed outlet plans to make every contest available to view on the company’s Peacock streaming hub, while broadcasting at least five hours of coverage every day on the NBC broadcast network. When it comes to primetime, NBC will curate a special nighttime show that offers highlights, analysis and features around the athletes and their activity.

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The company clearly hopes that its recent Paris Olympics telecast, which hinged on making the Games available for instant consumption while utilizing primetime in new ways that included ties to celebrity and pop culture, will serve as a model for future rounds of the global spectacular.

“Paris proved that the Olympics are back and remain an unrivaled media property, with the unique ability to captivate the nation and generate huge audiences across all demographics for 17 days and nights,” said Rick Cordella, president of NBC Sports, in a statement. “We expect Milan Cortina to carry on that legacy. The time zone allows us to mimic our Paris programming and coverage strategy on NBC and Peacock, which was widely praised and highly consumed. Team USA is poised to have one of its strongest Winter Olympic teams in years, and America has always been fascinated with Italy, its culture, food, and scenery. Milan Cortina has all the ingredients to produce yet another unforgettable Olympics one year from now.”

Peacock will serve up every sport live — 116 medal events, while offering a suite of interactive features, full event replays and curated video clips. “Gold Zone,” a so-called “whip-around” show that takes viewers to live moments of interest as they happen and which debuted for the Paris Games, will return.

USA Network will serve as a home to all Team USA events, while CNBC will provide coverage on the weekends and weekdays once its business day programming concludes. NBC Sports seems confident in its ability to rely on these networks even though they are supposed to be spun off into a new, stand-alone entity by the end of 2025.

NBCUniversal said in July that it expected to bring in more than $1.25 billion in advertising tied to the Paris Olympics.

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