Unlike last weekend’s Super Bowl — a high-stakes game that pits one team’s fans against the other’s — the Olympics have a way of truly uniting us as a nation.
Whether you’re an Olympic enthusiast who has followed a particular athlete throughout his career or a casual viewer who tunes in for the Opening Ceremony, the comprehensive coverage of the XXII Olympic Winter Games from Sochi, Russia, will not disappoint. In fact, it will offer even more opportunities for cheering on Team USA.
Beginning Thursday, Feb. 6, with preliminary rounds of snowboarding, freestyle skiing and figure skating, every phase of competition from all 15 sports on the Sochi program, including each medal-winning performance in all 98 events, will be streamed live on NBCOlympics.com and via the NBC Sports Live Extra mobile app for iPhone/iPad and Android. All this will be available through new, state-of-the-art cloud-based technology to Comcast cable customers. For the first time, all 1,000 hours of NBC’s live streaming coverage will be accessible directly on the biggest screen in the house through the availability of the NBC Sports Live Extra app on Comcast’s latest-generation X1 Entertainment Operating System.
Television coverage of the Sochi Games begins Feb. 6, with the first of an unprecedented 18 consecutive NBC primetime shows, continuing with Friday night’s Opening Ceremony and concluding Sunday, Feb. 23, with the Closing Ceremony. The Feb. 6 start marks the first time NBC will deliver primetime Olympic programming before the Opening Ceremony.
The NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) will present more than 230 hours of Olympic coverage from Sochi, the most Winter Olympic coverage ever on a cable network. In addition to its extensive figure skating coverage, the network will feature live coverage of speed skating, bobsled, ski jumping, Nordic combined, and more. NBCUniversal cable channels CNBC, MSNBC and USA Network will combine to present an additional 124 hours of competition coverage, focusing primarily on hockey and curling, including medal rounds.
The most recent London Olympic Games was the most-watched event in television history. After watching how viewers responded and used the existing technology, Comcast and NBCUniversal moved full speed ahead to deliver an unmatched viewing experience of the Sochi Games with more content, more convenience, and more viewing options than ever before.
Looking back to the last Winter Games in Vancouver in 2010 is even more revealing of how far the technology has come. For Sochi, NBCUniversal has more than doubled its amount of live streaming hours, and added 13 new events. Recognizing that tablets and other smart devices are now mainstream, they are also providing more mobile app integration. For example, customers accessing Comcast’s Xfinity TV Go app will be seamlessly directed to the NBC Sports Live Extra app to watch NBC’s online coverage of the Games.
For the first time, the NBC Sports Live Extra app will be available on television through the new Xfinity X1 platform, launched in Arkansas in Fall 2013. One of the approximately 25 daily streams is a live program called “Gold Zone,” providing up-to-the-minute action with live look-ins to marquee events, similar to the NFL’s popular RedZone channel.
The existing X1 Sports app will be refreshed for the Sochi Games, featuring Olympics-specific content including medal counts; search by sport, athlete or country; tune-in capability to live coverage; and access points to Xfinity On Demand and the Live Extra app on X1.
The Sochi Games are also the first SEEiT Olympics. SEEiT links Olympic-related conversations happening on Twitter to viewership. Directly from Twitter, Xfinity TV customers will be able to tune to NBC’s primetime show or set their DVR to record it. And for Xfinity subscribers and non-subscribers, Comcast is offering free WiFi at tens of thousands of hotspots in public locations, such as shopping districts and parks, so viewers can watch content on their mobile devices.
From a viewer’s point of view, this will be an Olympics experience like no other. Whether in the palm of your hand with an iPhone or on the biggest screen in your house, there is truly not a better ticket available.
To learn more about the NBCUniversal and Comcast Olympics experience, visit Xfinity.com/NBCOlympics.