Olympic Sport – Extreme Internet Exposure

The Olympics are hitting the airwaves, and computer monitors

With the Olympics starting in a few days I found myself searching for Olympic related news over the weekend.  I went to Google and searched on the keyword “Olympic coverage”.  My search eventually led me to nbcolympics.com and I was pleasantly surprised to see how much coverage NBC is providing through online media.  If their website is correct, you can watch over 1400 hours of Olympic coverage on TV and 2000 hours online!  Yes, you read that correctly.  NBC, the network TV giant, is planning to show more Olympic coverage online than on TV.  Who would ever have guessed 10 years ago that you could watch more Olympic coverage on your computer than on your TV?

So, I decided to research this a little more and discovered that YouTube has a deal with the International Olympic Committee to televise, err I mean stream, about 3 hours a day of exclusive content.  Wow, YouTube has come a long way from the days when it was perceived as a place to watch regular people post funny (and sometimes contrived) videos.

With this unprecedented increase in coverage of the Olympics through online media I can just imagine the shift in advertising dollars from traditional marketing channels to online marketing.  Lehman Brothers Internet Analyst Doug Anmuth expects $100 million dollars spent on internet marketing this year for the Summer Olympics.  While this is a fraction of the $1.5 billion dollars marketers will be spending overall in advertising for the global event, it represents the growing trend of major traditional ad spends moving over to the online world.  So expect to see more banners ads, Pay-per-Click ads, and social media marketing this summer.  The Olympics are right around the corner and the hottest sport this summer is extreme internet exposure.