The opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics averaged 28.6 million viewers on US media heavyweight NBCUniversal and Peacock, the streaming service which is a subsidiary of NBCUniversal.
This marks a 60% increase when compared to the 17.9 million average viewership of the Covid-delayed Tokyo opening ceremony three years ago, and an 8% increase compared to Rio de Janeiro’s 26.5 million average viewers in 2016.
This gives Paris 2024 the highest average viewership for any Olympic opening ceremony since London 2012.
The figures make the opening ceremony the most-watched sporting event on any US network outside of American football's NFL in 2024, with the Michigan-Alabama College Football Playoff semifinal on ESPN on January 1 coming in second place with 27.8 million.
The NBC broadcast network and streaming service Peacock will be the company’s primary platforms for its coverage of the Games, which run from July 26 to August 11.
In a first for the summer games, NBCU said Peacock will stream every event of every sport, including all 329 medal events. The platform will also carry full-event replays, curated video clips, exclusive original programming, and other content.
NBCUniversal holds US media rights to the Olympic Games through a deal covering Paris (2024), Milan Cortina (2026), Los Angeles (2028), and Brisbane (2032).
In the host country, meanwhile, 23.2 million viewers tuned in for the opening ceremony on public-service broadcaster France 2.
This delivered an 83.1% audience share in the country, making it the best non-soccer audience in French TV history.
In other European markets, an audience of 10.1 million watched the Paris 2024 opening on the ARD German public service channel, the highest figure since 2004, while an average of 6.8 million and a peak of 7.9 watched on the BBC in the UK, the biggest viewership since 2012, and RTVE attracted 3.3 million in Spain.
Outside of Europe, the opening ceremony was seen by 10.5 million on commercial free-to-air network Nine in Australia, while the CBC public service broadcaster in Canada attracted 13.3 million viewers.
