Comcast and the International Olympic Committee announced the Olympic Games will remain on the NBCUniversal family of networks through 2036.
The two sides announced a four-year, $3 billion extension of the media company’s long-held broadcast rights deal, now extending through the 2033-2036 Olympic cycle that covers the 2034 Winter Games in Salt Lake City and the 2036 Summer Games at a host city to be determined. NBC also delivers the Paralympic Games, which take place in the subsequent weeks after the Olympic events.
NBC has broadcasted 13 straight Summer and Winter Games. Between 2011 (when Comcast officially acquired NBC) and 2032, the broadcaster had committed nearly $12 billion in U.S. rights, cementing Comcast as one of the largest sources of revenue for the IOC.
“We live in a time when technology is driving faster and more fundamental transformation than we’ve seen in decades,” Comcast president Brian Roberts said in a statement. “This groundbreaking, new, long-term partnership between Comcast NBCUniversal and the International Olympic Committee not only recognizes this dynamic but anticipates that it will accelerate.”
After the Tokyo Olympics were postponed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Paris Games helped generate significant revenue for Comcast in 2024. According to its third-quarter earnings report in October, the media conglomerate drew $1.432 billion in ad sales and $474 million in distribution revenue.
The distribution revenue was likely a result of an uptick in Peacock subscriptions through an additional 3 million customers in 3Q 2024, with 2.8 million coming aboard in the first six days of the Summer Games. The streamer has 36 million total subscribers.
Comcast likely drew a profit, though how much was not disclosed. With the rights fee for Paris set at $1.452 billion, Comcast likely pulled in $454 million before production costs and other expenses were factored in.
The friendlier time zones of Paris proved to lift Comcast’s fortunes, setting the stage for a potentially bigger windfall when the Olympics come to home turf in Los Angeles in 2028.
That said, Comcast’s NBCUniversal as a whole will look different; Comcast has planned to spin off several of its ad-supported cable channels—Bravo, MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, E! and Syfy—into a separate company informally being called “SpinCo” to stave off the declining revenues that have impacted linear television.
Those linear properties carried live Olympic programming over the years, though Peacock’s growth made NBCU less dependent on those channels during the last Olympiad. Coupled with the shuttering of cable channel NBC Sports Network at the end of 2021, the majority of Comcast’s sports programming has aired on NBC broadcasts and Peacock.
