NBCUniversal and Twitter are partnering for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to show limited live event coverage, highlights, and a daily studio show on the @NBCOlympics handle during the Summer Games. Terms of the partnership were not disclosed.
As part of the deal, fans in the United States will vote each morning during the Olympics to decide which prime-time live event or athlete on NBC networks they want featured on Twitter that evening. According to the New York Times, this will be for around five minutes or less per broadcast.
NBC Olympics will also produce a live 20-minute original studio program that will focus on highlights, athlete interviews, and the happenings in and around the host city, as well as some of the best reactions to the Games on Twitter. There will also be real-time highlights and pre-Games content, including the US Olympic Team Trials.
The vast majority of Olympic coverage in the US will still remain exclusively on NBC’s linear TV channels and streaming services, but the initiative is designed to bring cord-cutting fans into the NBC fold.
The coverage on Twitter will be sponsored by Olympic partners only. According to a press release, the initiative gives “advertisers another avenue to connect to its coverage of the Games and to Twitter’s valuable audience”. NBCUniversal this week said it was projecting to bring in more than $1.2bn in ad sales for the 2020 Games.
NBC Olympics previously agreed a content partnership with social media platform Snapchat for the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro and the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang.