Peacock Strikes Gold With Outsized Olympics, Super Bowl Audiences

Why It Matters

The surge proves premium live sports can drive significant audience reach and subscriber growth, a critical lever for Peacock’s competitiveness in the streaming market.

Key Takeaways

• 6.3 B minutes streamed Olympics, 60% rise over 2022.
• 25.7 M total Olympic viewers, double 2022 average.
• Peacock likely delivered 10 M+ Super Bowl viewers.
• Sports drives subscriber gains despite broader quarterly losses.
• NBCU paid $7.75 B for 2022‑32 Olympics rights.

Pulse Analysis

In the crowded streaming arena, live sports have become the premier differentiator, and Peacock’s recent performance underscores that reality. By delivering 6.3 billion minutes of Winter Olympics content, the service not only eclipsed the combined streaming totals of the 2018 and 2022 Games but also amplified NBCUniversal’s overall viewership to 25.7 million—a figure that doubles the audience from four years ago. This level of engagement signals strong advertiser interest and provides a compelling hook for new subscribers seeking real‑time event access.

The Olympics, while less expensive than NFL or NBA contracts, still represent a massive financial commitment, with NBCUniversal’s rights deal valued at $7.75 billion for the 2022‑32 cycle and a $3 billion extension for 2034‑36. Peacock’s ability to translate that investment into measurable minutes and viewer counts demonstrates effective monetization through ad‑supported streams and premium subscription tiers. Moreover, the platform’s contribution of roughly 10 million viewers to the Super Bowl—about 10% of the total cross‑platform audience—highlights its growing role in delivering marquee events alongside traditional broadcast.

Looking ahead, Peacock’s sports strategy appears poised to offset broader quarterly losses by leveraging high‑profile events to boost subscriber acquisition and retention. The $110 million price tag for the 2024 streaming‑exclusive NFL playoff game illustrates a willingness to invest in exclusive content that can draw tens of millions of viewers. As competition intensifies, Peacock’s success in turning costly rights into audience growth will be a key metric for investors and a bellwether for the future of streaming‑first sports distribution.

Peacock Strikes Gold With Outsized Olympics, Super Bowl Audiences

By Rick Porter, Television Business Editor · February 13 2026 1:22 pm

Peacock is having a moment.

NBCUniversal’s streaming platform is having its biggest week to date, fueled by some of the biggest sporting events on the planet – the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics. The latter has already racked up its best streaming performance ever, with the majority of the 17‑day event still to come.

Through Wednesday, Peacock (and other NBCUniversal digital outlets) have amassed 6.3 billion minutes of viewing of the Milan‑Cortina Olympics. That’s more than the combined total for the previous two Winter Olympics in 2018 and 2022 — though Peacock did not yet exist in 2018, with streaming coming mostly through NBC apps. NBCU’s streaming numbers are already up more than 60 percent from the entirety of the 2022 games, a gap that will only grow over the final week‑plus of these Olympics.

Peacock has dedicated live streams for every event in the competition during daytime hours in the U.S., plus its Gold Zone show that offers live looks to multiple sports at once. All that coverage has contributed significantly to a big overall jump in Winter Olympics viewing (including that on NBC, USA and CNBC) compared to four years ago. As of Wednesday, NBCUniversal is drawing 25.7 million viewers across its full suite of Olympics programming, double the 12.8 million average through the same time in 2022.

As for the Super Bowl, Nielsen reported the game averaged 124.93 million viewers — the second largest audience in U.S. TV history — with 121.63 million attributed to NBC and Peacock (Telemundo’s Spanish‑language telecast had the other 3.3 million). Neither Nielsen nor NBCUniversal is offering a breakdown of how the audience shook out between NBC and Peacock, though clearly the vast majority of those viewers watched on the broadcast network.

Peacock’s number likely isn’t small, however: during the NFL’s regular season, Peacock contributed about 10.6 percent of Sunday Night Football’s total cross‑platform audience (2.5 million of 23.5 million viewers). It’s not at all farfetched to put the streamer’s portion of the Super Bowl audience at 10 million or more viewers.

The big tune‑ins come at an opportune time for Peacock, which grew its subscriber base in the fourth quarter of 2025 but also posted a wider loss than the same period in 2024. That was due in part to the streamer’s portion of NBCUniversal’s NBA rights package and a streaming‑exclusive NFL game in late December.

The Olympics aren’t as pricey as the NFL or NBA. NBCUniversal’s current rights deal, signed in 2014 — years before Peacock was even on the drawing board — covers the 2022‑32 games and is for $7.75 billion. Last year, NBCU inked a $3 billion extension for the 2034 and 2036 Olympics. That’s an average of about $1.34 billion for each of the eight Olympics in that time frame.

The current NFL deal, which includes Sunday Night Football, a couple of playoff games each season and the Super Bowl every four years, costs $2 billion annually. Peacock’s January 2024 playoff game — the first streaming‑exclusive postseason contest for the league — had a $110 million price tag.