Are more Americans watching the 2026 olympics

Yes. We like watching our countrymen (& women) getting their ass handed to them.

The Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics are performing very well for US viewership — a huge rebound from the 2022 Beijing games. Here's how it's shaking out:

Overall viewership through about a week in:

• Averaging 26.5 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, and other NBCUniversal platforms — a 93% increase from the comparable period in 2022 Front Office Sports and the most-watched Winter Games at this point since the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Front Office Sports

• That's nearly double the 12.8 million average through the same point in 2022. The Hollywood Reporter

Opening ceremony:

• Averaged 21.4 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, up 34% from the 2022 Beijing ceremony's 15.9 million. The Hollywood Reporter

Streaming is the big story:

• Peacock and NBCU platforms have already amassed 6.3 billion minutes of viewing, more than the 2018 and 2022 Winter Olympics combined Mesabi Tribune (2.2 billion in 2018 and 3.9 billion in 2022) — with over a week still remaining.

Key factors driving the gains:

• Much more favorable time zones with Italy vs. Beijing (China) or PyeongChang (South Korea)

• Peacock's subscriber base has grown enormously — from about 16 million in 2022 to 44 million now

• NBC has solidified its strategy emphasizing live coverage of every sport across numerous platforms, plus a storytelling-driven primetime show — the same approach that drove an 82% viewership increase for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics Front Office Sports

• Nielsen's newer measurement methodology captures more viewers than before

So in short, it's a major bounce-back. The 2022 Beijing games were all-time lows for Winter Olympics viewership in the US, and these games are tracking at roughly double those numbers, putting them in line with the best Winter Olympics audiences in over a decade.