Paris Olympics ad sales are ‘pacing ahead’ of past games

The Paris Olympics won’t kick off until summer 2024, but marketers are already staking their claim on the competition.

NBCUniversal is sold out of all of the ad slots for the live airing and streaming of the Opening Ceremony, and only has a “handful” of units left in the prime-time re-airing of the ceremony, Dan Lovinger, NBCU’s president of Olympic and Paralympic partnerships, announced Wednesday. The network is also sold out of all planned halftime sponsorship positions across team competitions like soccer and basketball, he said.

NBCU, which has the rights to air US broadcasts of the games through 2032, is also sold out of “Prime Pods,” a new linear and streaming ad format from NBCU that places ads from a single advertiser within Olympics programming during prime time. (That sell-out was previously reported around the time of the network’s upfronts presentation, when it said it had locked in around $100 million in Olympics ad commitments.)

In all, total sales are pacing ahead of prior Olympic Games and prior Paralympic Games, an extension of a trend the company previously shared six months ago.

“With just about 10 months ago, we’re further ahead than we’ve ever been before, for summer or winter games,” Lovinger told Marketing Brew.

The advertisers: NBCU is clocking advertiser interest “across the board,” Lovinger said, with automotive and pharmaceutical brand interest trending upward compared to past games. Brands are particularly interested in women athletes and NBCU’s coverage of women’s sports, which will account for more than 50% of the network’s coverage.

“From pharma to tech to auto, you name it, everybody wants to be part of that,” Lovinger said.

Advertisers are also eager to be involved in the Paralympic Games, he said, which NBCU will air a few weeks after the Olympic Games conclude.

Watch what happens live: NBCU will stream the festivities live on its subscription streaming service Peacock, marking the first time that the summer games will be available in its entirety on streaming, Lovinger said. (The network previously made the 2022 Winter Olympics available to stream on Peacock’s premium tier.) In addition, NBCU is investing big on social, distributing short-form content on sites like X and TikTok and working with creators to make social content from the games, Lovinger said. Overall, the company anticipates that anywhere from 20%–25% of total consumption will be through digital channels and Peacock, Lovinger said.

That streaming consumption means that there is more room for different kinds of advertisers who may have different needs and smaller budgets.

“In the past when everything was linear…only a handful of advertisers could literally afford the out of pocket, and so we would do somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 different advertising deals for the Olympics,” Lovinger said. “But with Peacock and digital and social, we can now extend the mid-tail and the long-tail. So 100 [advertisers] might become 200.”

Bonne chance: After a challenging few games disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic and a shift to streaming, Lovinger is optimistic about audience and advertiser interest. Jenny Storms, CMO of NBCU’s sports and entertainment division, said that she expects the popularity of Paris—a top destination for travel among millennials and Gen Z—to serve the network well as it looks to attract viewers.

Beyond that, amid a “very hotly contested political cycle” with the games sandwiched between the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention, the Olympics could stand out as “this really pure oasis of goodwill,” Lovinger said.