The United States nabbed gold in both men’s and women’s basketball, and each gold medal game drew strong viewership.
The men’s win against France initially averaged 19.5 million viewers on Saturday, the most-watched men’s gold medal game since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. That total was updated to 20.3 million viewers by NBC on Tuesday.
Three years ago, the same matchup averaged 9.3 million viewers.
Not to be outdone, the women’s win (also against France) averaged 7.8 million viewers on Sunday.
In other impressive viewership marks, the USWNT‘s gold medal win over Brazil on Saturday morning averaged 9.0 million viewers, the most-watched gold medal soccer game since the 2004 Athens Olympics.
As is standard when discussing viewership in 2024, these are not apples-to-apples comparisons. Nielsen did not track out-of-home viewing before the Tokyo games, and Peacock also didn’t exist to stream live events before those games. The Peacock factor is significant since the streaming service generated a stunning 23.5 billion minutes of content streamed this summer, a 40% increase on the prior total of every other Olympics ever.
Even with those caveats, the impressive viewership for the U.S. gold medal wins this weekend, along with the games as a whole, are nothing to be written off. The WNBA and NWSL also have to be thrilled with the strong viewership for the basketball and soccer gold medal games, with their seasons restarting in the next week (WNBA) or two (NWSL).
About Joe Lucia
I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.