STAMFORD, Conn.—Newly released viewing figures for the U.S. show that the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics were up 96% from the 2022 games and were the most watched Winter Games since 2014.
The games, which saw NBCUniversal cover more than 3,200 hours of the action from 116 events and a star-studded performance by Team USA, which won its most-ever Winter Games gold medals (12), also saw viewers consum more than 16.7 billion minutes of streaming on NBCU platforms, more than double the combined total of all prior Winter Games.
NBCU also reported that more than 215 million Americans (215.6 million through Feb. 17) tuned in across NBCUniversal’s platforms for what it has been calling “Legendary February,” headlined by Super Bowl LX, the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, the NBA All-Star-Game, and the Feb. 1 debut of Sunday Night Basketball on February, according to Nielsen Big Data + Panel reach metrics.
“Beginning with the February 1 debut of Sunday Night Basketball, our NBC Sports and Olympics personnel delivered a truly ‘Legendary February’ to our audiences on NBC, Telemundo, Peacock and Versant’s USA Network and CNBC that definitely exceeded our expectations," said Rick Cordella, president, NBC Sports. "The success of the Milan Cortina Olympics, Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara and the 2026 NBA All Star Weekend in Los Angeles could not have happened without the enormous cooperation and support from across Comcast NBCUniversal— including Peacock, NBC Entertainment, NBC News, Telemundo, local owned-stations, NBC affiliates, our exceptional ad sales and distribution teams, and Xfinity. And, of course, our great partners at the IOC, USOPC, NFL and NBA.”
Other data highlights from the month include:
- Milan Cortina Winter Olympics – most-watched Winter Games since 2014.
- Super Bowl LX – most-watched show in NBC’s 100-year history; second-most watched show of all-time (with largest peak audience of any show in U.S. history); most watched Super Bowl in Spanish language history on Telemundo
- NBA All-Star Game – most-watched since 2011.
- NBC Sports has the most-watched football, basketball and hockey game of this TV season, all coming within Legendary February.
- Since Feb. 1, NBC-owned and affiliated stations dominated broadcast television, topping primetime local market ratings in all 56 metered markets.
- Peacock achieved its biggest month ever.
Gary Zenkel, President, NBC Olympics added that “The Milan Cortina Olympics proved once again that the American audience will gather in large numbers over 17 days to experience this unmatched global competition. These Winter Games — superbly hosted across northern Italy, and produced and distributed by a team of 2,700 — reached blockbuster U.S. audiences of more than 50 million viewers each day, continuing the media dominance we experienced less than two years ago at the Paris Olympics. We can’t wait for the return of the Olympics to the United States with the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028 and are ecstatic to be the U.S. media home of five Olympic Games over the next decade.”
Additional viewing data from the Olympics included:
- Beginning with the primetime show on the field at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., immediately after calling his first Super Bowl on Sunday, Feb. 8, NBCU’s lead Olympics host Mike Tirico anchored more than 70 hours across two primetime presentations – the latter portion of live Milan Prime coverage from 2-5 p.m. ET and the traditional U.S. primetime (Primetime in Milan) at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Tirico’s closing comments from the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena following the gold medal men’s hockey game have been viewed more than six million times across NBC Sports’ social platforms.
- From the most-watched Opening Ceremony in 12 years through the Closing Ceremony, the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics averaged 23.5 million viewers on NBC, Peacock, NBCUniversal Digital Platforms and Versant’s CNBC and USA Network across the combined live afternoon Milan Prime window (2-5 p.m. ET) and U.S. primetime (8-11 p.m. ET/PT) time periods. Milan Cortina viewership is the highest for a Winter Games since Sochi 2014 and up 96% from the 2022 Beijing Olympics (12.0 million). Viewership is based on official Nielsen Big Data + Panel viewership (through Thursday 2/19) and preliminary data from Nielsen (2/20-22), and digital data from Adobe Analytics. Final data will be available later this week.
- All 15 full competition days (Sat., Feb. 7 through Sat., Feb. 21) topped 20 million viewers
- Over the full Games, Milan Prime (live U.S. daytime) and Primetime in Milan (U.S. primetime) coverage posted a daily streaming TAD of 3.3 million viewers across Peacock and NBCU Digital platforms.
- As the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics concluded with last night’s Closing Ceremony, the NBC Broadcast Network extended its streak to 143 consecutive Olympics nights as primetime’s No. 1 show – dating to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
- Throughout “Legendary February,” NBC-owned and affiliated stations have dominated broadcast television, topping primetime local market ratings in all 56 metered markets.
- Milwaukee led all markets in local ratings during the Milan Cortina Olympics. A chart of the Top 20 markets is at bottom.
- Peacock had its best month ever. Led by Peacock, a Winter Games record 16.7 billion minutes of Milan Cortina Olympics coverage were streamed across NBCUniversal digital platforms – more than double all prior Winter Olympics combined (6.9 billion minutes). Peacock streamed more than 850 live events over a 17-day period. Peacock also served as the live streaming home for Super Bowl LX, the NBA All-Star Game and the debut of Sunday Night Basketball. The post-Super Bowl premiere of “The ’Burbs” was the highest Day 1 Peacock original debut ever and has already generated nearly 1 billion viewing minutes on platform since its Feb. 8 launch. In addition, four of the top 10 Peacock usage days all-time and seven of Peacock’s 10 largest reach days of all-time happened during the Milan Cortina Olympics.
- Three days apart, United States Women’s and Men’s Hockey Teams defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime to win Olympic gold medals. On Thursday, the USA-Canada game was the most-watched women’s hockey game on record, averaging 5.3 million viewers on USA Network and Peacock. The audience peaked at 7.7 million viewers in overtime (3:45-4 p.m. ET).
- In Sunday’s final medal event of the Milan Cortina Olympics, Team USA won its first gold medal in men’s hockey since 1980 in Lake Placid. Viewership figures for NBC Sports’ presentation of the game will be available on Tuesday.
- Featuring live coverage of every Winter Games sport, USA Network was the top destination for sports and entertainment programming on cable from the first day of competition on USA Network on Feb. 5 through Feb. 17 (latest data available in Nielsen NPower). USA Network has delivered an average of 1.7 million primetime viewers from Feb. 5-17 – topping all sports and entertainment cable networks. USA Network has delivered an average of 1.3 million Total Day viewers from Feb. 5-17 – topping all sports and entertainment cable networks. USA Network delivered an average of 1.64 million Total Day viewers across consecutive weekends (Feb. 7-8 and Feb. 14-15) – the best average viewership across successive weekends since December 2014.
- Milan Cortina Olympics content registered 4.28 billion impressions across NBC Sports social channels – a 437% increase vs. the Beijing Olympics and 231% above the PyeongChang Olympics. In addition, NBC Sports social channels delivered a 434% increase in social video viewership over the Beijing Olympics and more than 9X over PyeongChang. They also added 1.4 million new followers to the full portfolio of accounts/channels.
- Social video views across NBC News and TODAY Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube accounts are up 1,087% vs. Beijing.
- NBCU delivered the highest Olympic and Paralympic advertising revenue for Winter Games in company history. The highest :30 second ad unit rate for Super Bowl ever. The digital ad revenue for Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics also tripled the 2022 Beijing Olympics, revenue setting Winter Games records
