The NBC Olympics division of US media company NBCUniversal will partner with mobile-first video news outlet NowThis to produce content focused on United States Olympic and Paralympic athletes in the lead-up to the 2020 Tokyo Games.
NowThis will generate athlete-focused video content, including video profiles, sit-down interviews, and opinion pieces voiced by the athletes themselves, which will be distributed across its extensive digital and social media outlets.
The Olympic content will be pre-Games focused, beginning in March and continuing up until the Opening Ceremony on July 24. NBC Olympics will provide NowThis with insider access to interview US Olympic and Paralympic athletes.
For the Tokyo Paralympics, NowThis will create both pre-Games and in-Games content. During the Paralympics, NowThis will produce a daily recap video focusing on the most memorable moments of that day’s competition and ceremonies.
NBC Olympics has the option of running NowThis video packages across its own digital and linear properties.
“NowThis has a far-reaching and influential presence across the social media landscape, and a keen interest in the stories of Olympic and Paralympic athletes,” said NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel.
Last month NBC Olympics extended its partnership with social media platform Snapchat to cover the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo. And broadly, the goal of both the alignments is the same in that it helps drive additional viewers to the network’s Olympics coverage and expand the overall distribution reach.
It was also announced that Comcast and NBCUniversal’s new Peacock subscription streaming video service will feature live coverage of the Tokyo Opening and Closing Ceremonies before they air on NBC in primetime. It will also stream three daily Olympic shows, Tokyo Live, Tokyo Daily Digest, and Tokyo Tonight.
In December, NBC Sports said the network has surpassed $1bn in US ad sales for the Tokyo Olympics, and remains firmly on track to break its prior Olympics highwater mark of $1.2bn registered for the Rio 2016 Games. NBCUniversal overall is planning more than 7,000 total hours of Olympics coverage from Tokyo across broadcast, cable, digital, and social platforms.