Just six months after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the Winter Games kicked off Friday night to record low ratings. According to the numbers, viewership averaged at 12.8 million which is a significant decline from the nearly 28 million viewers four years ago.
The network saw a steady increase in viewership over the weekend, however, the numbers are still down by more than half when compared to the PyeongChang games just four years ago. The numbers from Saturday and Sunday averaged 13.6 million and 13.7 million respectively.
Although the stark decline in viewership may surprise some, it's not all that shocking that people are deciding to tune out. With America's strained relationship with China, which stems from economic and labor issues, a lack of buzz coming into the games, xenophobia and COVID-19 still being a major issue, the games are becoming talking points for political issues rather than what is happening at the games themselves.
Former president of CBS Sports, Neal Pilson says there is a lot of negative factors that comes with having an event in China.
“There are a whole range of subliminal factors that are negatives when it comes to an event in China,” said Neal Pilson, the former president of CBS Sports who now runs his own sports television consulting company. “It just adds to the obvious issues, and it leads to the American public being not as interested in the Games this year.”
The lack of viewership is a pattern we've seen for quite some time now. Tokyo’s primetime viewership decreased by 47% compared to Rio's ratings back in 2016. PyongChang's games marked the first time that no single night averaged 30 million viewers. Last year’s Tokyo Olympics averaged above 20 million only one of 17 nights, and had one of the smallest audiences for the Summer games, dating back to 1992.
NBC is apparently not viewing this as a moment to panic and remain optimistic as NBCU Television chairman Mark Lazarus told Sports Illustrated.
"The sky is definitely not falling. Yes, we have run into a bunch of bad factors that have made it harder for us. But most importantly, we had a realistic view on the audiences we were going to deliver, and we are delivering what we promised to the marketing community,” NBCUniversal Television chairman Mark Lazarus said. “But our trend line is pretty good. Our ratings have gone up the last three days. We are feeling that America is finding the Olympics.”
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Despite the bleak numbers, the Olympics still remains the most-watched event on their network by a significant margin. I'm sure execs will all but forget about this issue with the Super Bowl airing on their network this Sunday.
Follow Jasper Jones on Twitter: @jonesj2342
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