NBCU Gives Peacock Major Role With Live Coverage of Gymnastics and Men's Basketball

With exactly a month to go until the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, NBCUniversal is slowly lifting the curtain on its plans for the biggest sporting event of the year. Streaming service Peacock, which debuted last summer, will factor into NBCUniversal’s Olympics coverage for the first time. The 2020 games were initially planned as a tentpole launch for the streaming service, until they were postponed due to Covid-19. But despite the continued controversy over whether the Games should go on, the company believes the postponement has only increased interest in the Olympics. “I think that the delay has just brought more attention to these Olympics,” said Pete Bevacqua, chairman of NBC Sports Group, during a media event previewing the Games on Wednesday. “I think it has that potential to be something really special with an interest level that hopefully will be off the charts.” (The Tokyo Olympics is already a hit with advertisers: NBCUniversal has surpassed its $1.2 billion advertising haul from the last Summer Games, in Rio.) This year’s Games will be the “most meaningful Olympics of our lifetime,” added Molly Solomon, executive producer of the Olympics for NBCUniversal. “After everything the world’s gone through and as we begin to emerge from this pandemic, the world coming together is going to be an incredibly impactful experience. I do think that people are craving this shared experience, and what better way to come together than through the shared stories of these athletes.” While questions still circulate over whether the Tokyo Olympics should take place amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, NBCUniversal said it has a “really strong plan” when it comes to safety. “We are in constant contact with the IOC [International Olympic Committee],” said Bevacqua. “I think we’re going into this with the benefit of the IOC and a really strong plan in terms of creating safety for people that are there, obviously the athletes and the limited spectators that will be there. I feel that the plan that has been developed over a year plus couldn’t be more set.” Peacock's Olympics debut Peacock will be a major focus of NBCUniversal's Olympics strategy. The streamer is set to launch a Tokyo Olympics destination on July 15, ahead of July 23’s Opening Ceremony. The hub will have some of the Games’ biggest events, including men’s and women’s gymnastics, track and field and the U.S. Men’s Basketball Team. All of the coverage will be available on the streamer's free tier, with the exception of live men’s basketball, which will be behind the paywall on Peacock Premium. “The vast majority of the Olympics programming on Peacock is going to be available for free and it's ad supported,” said Matt Strauss, chairman of Peacock. “Given that we're still testing and learning, we thought it was an opportunity for us to take an event like U.S. men's basketball, and make it available on the premium tier. So it's really just a way for us to learn.” Amber Ruffin, host, writer and executive producer of Peacock’s late-night series The Amber Ruffin Show, is taking her talents to Tokyo to provide her own unique analyses of the competition. Lindsay Czarniak, Lolo Jones and MJ Acosta-Ruiz will host On Her Turf at the Olympics, the first NBC Olympics show dedicated to covering women’s sports at the Games. Other programming announcements include Olympic Highlights with Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg, Golden, following gymnasts Laurie Hernandez, Morgan Hurd, Sunisa Lee, Konnor McClain and MyKayla Skinner on their respective journeys to the Olympics. For the first time, fans will be able to watch the 1996 gold medal soccer match featuring the U.S. Women’s National Team in The Sisters of ’96. The match was not fully televised at the time, and Peacock will also debut an hour-long special that reunites the stars of the team. 'The best of both worlds' However, Peacock is just one part of the company's overall Olympics plan. “We think there’s an opportunity to have [events] live on Peacock in the morning and our curated package, highly produced, dramatic moments and the entirety of the event on NBC in primetime, and the time zone allows us, in my view, to get the best of both worlds,” said Mark Lazarus, chairman, NBCUniversal television and streaming. Over on the linear side, Savannah Guthrie is set to join Mike Tirico in co-hosting the Opening Ceremony on July 23, also the first time the network will air that event live. Tirico will host NBC's primetime Olympic coverage from its first-ever outdoor set, which will showcase Tokyo. And in another first, NBCUniversal is also set to debut virtual reality graphics as part of the primetime presentation. “The proliferation of all these different platforms, it allows us to cater to both superfans with everything streaming all the time, but then you can come over to the network and primetime and you can get a highly curated, most popular sports in primetime,” said Solomon. “Then you go over to the cable channels and the real estate there allows us to show longform coverage of games and events on USA and NBCSN.” NBCUniversal is also working with a handful of social partners including NowThis, Twitch and Snapchat. “Twitch is new to us and we’re really excited about it. This is going to be a day of programming on Twitch, and it’s going to be gamers doing their thing and talking about the games,” said Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics and business. "There will also be a sidecast on Twitch that will go side by side with the NBC primetime show." 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