NBCUniversal sells out ad slots for 2026 winter Olympics

NBCUniversal has fully sold out advertising slots for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Italy more than a month before the event begins, the company said on Tuesday. The Milano Cortina Olympics are set to start in early February.

According to NBCUniversal, more than 100 new advertisers have signed on for the Games, making Milano Cortina 2026 the most profitable Winter Olympics in the company’s history across both broadcast and digital platforms.

While NBCUniversal did not disclose exact revenue figures, the scale of demand points to a new record. For comparison, media estimates put NBCUniversal’s advertising revenue from the 2022 Winter Olympics at around $963 million, while ad sales from the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics are estimated at approximately $1.2 billion. As a result, industry expectations are that advertising revenue from Milano Cortina 2026 will surpass all previous Winter Olympics.

February will be a particularly busy month for NBCUniversal, which will also broadcast the 60th Super Bowl and the NBA All-Star Weekend. The company said advertising inventory across all three major events has sold out, with the combined programming expected to reach nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population.

“For the first time in our company’s history, we have seen such unprecedented demand that we are officially sold out of inventory this far in advance,” said Peter Lazarus, Executive Vice President of Advertising and Partnerships at NBC Sports & Olympics.

The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will run from February 6 to 22. More than 85% of NBCUniversal’s Olympic brand partners are investing in digital advertising, while adoption of ad innovations on the Peacock streaming platform has increased by 31% compared with the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.