As expected, swimming and gymnastics were the most-watched sports, according to the August survey, with 48 percent and 44 percent of U.S. adults, respectively, saying they watched “a lot” or “some” of each.
Track and field (37 percent), diving (35 percent), basketball (34 percent), beach volleyball (34 percent) and indoor volleyball (33 percent) were the only other sports of which at least 1 in 3 Americans said they watched a significant amount.
Baseball/softball (22 percent), tennis (19 percent) and boxing (20 percent) all significantly underperformed in self-reported viewership relative to interest in the July survey.
Peacock delivers mixed results despite NBC’s streaming records
Driving awareness and usage of its year-old streaming service, Peacock, was a core priority for NBC in its programming of the Tokyo Olympics. In addition to making live gymnastics, track and most men’s basketball games available exclusively on its streaming platforms (which also includes NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app), NBC launched six digital channels on Peacock, such as Tokyo Now and Meet the Olympians, featuring exclusive daily studio shows and original content.
The network said Peacock registered its best two weeks of usage during the Olympics as part of more than 5.6 billion minutes’ worth of streaming across all of NBC’s digital platforms. Peacock mobile downloads also reportedly doubled month-over-month in July on the back of the Tokyo Games.
According to Morning Consult’s survey results, however, gains in awareness and adoption among U.S. adults were fairly modest. In July, 49 percent of U.S. adults said they were “very” or “somewhat” familiar with Peacock, a figure that increased to 54 percent in post-games polling. The share of Americans who said they or someone in their household subscribes to the service grew from 21 percent before the Tokyo Games to 25 percent after its conclusion.
The emphasis on digital platforms, combined with the spreading of events across its array of broadcast and cable networks, seemingly had a negative impact for some consumers who had trouble locating where to watch some events.
Twenty percent of adults who said they watched “a lot” or “some” of the games said it was difficult to find what they were looking for, a number that increased to 25 percent when including those who said they watched “not very much” of the Olympics.
Awareness of 2022 Winter Games is surprisingly low
Due to the postponement of the Tokyo Games by a year, the countdown to the next Olympic Games is already on. According to the results of the August survey, however, awareness of when and where those games are scheduled to take place is surprisingly low.
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