The NBC Olympics division of US media company NBCUniversal has extended its partnership with social media platform Snapchat to cover the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.
It is the third consecutive Olympic partnership between NBC Olympics and Snap Inc, after previously collaborating on Rio 2016 and PyeongChang 2018.
NBC Olympics will release more than 70 episodes across four daily shows for Snapchat leading up to and during the Games, more than triple the amount of episodes compared to the 2018 Games. For the first time, NBC Olympics will create two daily highlights shows, which will be updated in near real-time throughout the day with must-see moments from the day in Tokyo.
During the Games, two unscripted Shows will air two new episodes per day. Chasing Gold, which debuted during PyeongChang 2018, follows the journeys of Team USA athletes as they prepare to compete for gold on the world’s biggest athletic stage. The second show is a new, daily recap showcasing the most memorable Olympic moments from that day curated specifically for the platform.
For PyeongChang 2018, NBC Olympics’ content on Snapchat reached more than 40 million unique users in the United States, up over 25 per cent from the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Earlier this month, it was 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.