Neal Freiman

The games wrapped up yesterday with an instantly legendary wrist shot off of Jack Hughes' stick.

The American men's hockey team defeated Canada in overtime for their first gold medal since the Miracle on Ice in 1980.

And only two days before, the USA women's team also clinched the gold with an OT win over Canada.

The Olympics renaissance truly started in Paris two years ago, where the joyful Summer Games posted an 82% viewership increase over the prior Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

And the momentum continued in Milan Cortina, which was on pace to nearly double the TV audience from Beijing four years ago.

In Italy, everything seemed to align for the Olympics and NBC, which spent $1 billion to broadcast the Games.

The scandals were petty and captivating as anything you'd see on Bravo.

The star power, undeniable.

The drama at a fever pitch.

And NBC's production, innovative and nearly flawless.

All this despite the Winter Games featuring obscure, quirky sports that few people watch or participate in outside of the Olympics.

Toby, when the full viewership data rolls in, we're going to see some massive numbers.

It is full steam ahead for Los Angeles in 2028.

Right.

So let's talk about NBC's strategy, because over the past few Olympics, they have got this thing down really well to how they're going to broadcast the games.

First of all, I just want to say that we're looking at 82% viewership increase for the summer games in Paris, probably 100% for the winter games in Italy over the previous Olympics.

And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that there's no COVID anymore.

and the time zone is much better in for american viewership at least in europe than in asia so there were some structural factors going into this olympic viewership increase but also nbc has just figured out how to put this thing on peacock they put all of the live events every single one of them you can watch either on peacock or linear tv so if you are free during the day you're not working you can put that up on your second monitor and at the same time they have this

beautifully produced program.

It starts at 8 p.m.