The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, Italy, are delivering a massive viewership surge for NBC Sports, averaging 26.5 million viewers across its platforms through the first five days of competition—marking a 93% increase from the comparable period during the 2022 Beijing Winter Games and the strongest start for a Winter Olympics since the 2014 Sochi Games.
This strong performance comes despite NBC not achieving the hoped-for additional boost from Super Bowl LX the previous weekend. Super Bowl LX, featuring the Seattle Seahawks' 29-13 victory over the New England Patriots, averaged 124.9 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL+ (per Nielsen Big Data + Panel live + same-day data).
While that made it the second-most-watched Super Bowl in U.S. history—behind only 2025's Super Bowl LIX—and set an all-time U.S. peak audience record of 137.8 million in the second quarter, it represented a slight dip (about 2%) from the prior year's record 127.7 million viewers.
Factors contributing to the Winter Olympics jump include more favorable time zone alignment with U.S. audiences (compared to Beijing), expanded streaming on Peacock, multi-platform distribution across NBC, CNBC, USA Network, and digital outlets, and NBCUniversal's "Legendary February" programming push that has already reached over 200 million unique American viewers across Super Bowl LX, the Olympics, and other events.
NBC Sports appears well-positioned for continued strong performance as the Milan-Cortina Games progress, contrasting with the more modest expectations around Super Bowl viewership this year.