Milan Cortina Olympics draw largest audience since 2014, NBC says

The Milan Cortina Olympics drew an average of 23.5 million viewers in the United States, making it the most-watched Olympics since the 2014 Sochi Games, according to numbers released by NBCUniversal on Monday.

The average viewership was a 96 percent increase over the last Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022, which drew only 12 million.

The viewership numbers included audiences across several outlets, including NBC, Peacock, USA Network, CNBC and NBC’s digital properties. The figures are based on “official Nielsen Big Data + Panel viewership (through Thursday 2/19) and preliminary data from Nielsen (2/20-22), and digital data from Adobe Analytics,” NBC said.

Viewership data for Sunday’s men’s hockey gold medal game between the United States and Canada is not expected to be available until Tuesday. According to CBC, 8.7 million viewers watched the game in Canada. The women’s hockey gold medal game, also between the U.S. and Canada, was watched by an average of 5.3 million viewers and peaked at 7.7 million during overtime.

February was a big month for NBC, which also hosted the Super Bowl (125.6 million viewers) and the NBA All-Star Game (8.8 million).

NBCUniversal holds the U.S. media rights to the Olympics through 2036.