Primetime men’s and women’s Olympics coverage nearly even, though women still favored

In the aftermath of the 2024 Paris Olympics, a study has determined that coverage of women’s events and athletes outpaced coverage of men’s events and athletes for the sixth time in seven Olympics. Still, the gap has shrunk to its smallest level across those six events.

Per Five Ring TV , James R. Angelini from the University of Delaware and Paul J. MacArthur from Utica University have calculated that coverage of women’s events this year made up 52.08% of NBC’s primetime programming, compared to 47.92% for men’s events. This data excludes mixed-sex events, which typically make up under 2% of coverage.

And while women’s sports were still covered more in 2024, the gap between women’s and men’s sports fell to its smallest level since Sochi 2014, the last time men’s events received more coverage.

During the 2022 Beijing Olympics, women’s sports received a whopping 60.05% of coverage, the highest mark ever for women’s sports and the fourth-largest since tracking began with the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics. Three years ago in Tokyo, women’s events got 57.95% of the coverage, compared to 52.2% for PyeongChang in 2018.

The biggest disparity came in gymnastics, as you might expect. Across nearly ten hours of coverage, women’s gymnastics outpaced men’s gymnastics by a more than two-to-one basis.

The difference in airtime largely came down to gymnastics. Team USA women won more medals in gymnastics than Team USA men. They also won gold medals, while Team USA men did not. Women’s gymnastics coverage outpaced men’s gymnastics coverage by more than 3 hours and 28 minutes during NBC’s primetime Paris Olympic broadcast.

The gap between men’s and women’s coverage shrunk so far in part because of the Americans’ lack of success in beach volleyball. No one from Team USA medaled, and as a result, the combined coverage between men’s and women’s events shrunk to less than four minutes. American women were staples in the medal round in 2012, 2016, and 2021, while American men were not, and the coverage in those three Olympiads exemplified that disparity.

The margin of difference between men’s and women’s sports in 2024, however, is much narrower than the three previous Summer Games where women had a majority of the primetime broadcast coverage. This may be due to the unexpected disappearance of beach volleyball, which had been a primetime staple since the 2004 Athens Summer Games.

Women’s beach volleyball received more than of 12 hours and 44 minutes of primetime coverage across the London, Rio and Tokyo Summer Games. During that same time frame, men’s beach volleyball received just over 1 hour and 12 minutes of primetime coverage.

“In 2024, the total coverage of men’s and women’s beach volleyball combined did not even reach four minutes,” says Angelini. “The lack of beach volleyball, likely due to American teams failing to reach the medal rounds, narrowed the overall coverage gap.”

Overall, men’s events this summer received 16 hours and 21 minutes of NBC’s primetime coverage, compared to 17 hours and 46 minutes for women’s events. Mixed-sex events received just 38 minutes, with nearly all of that coverage in swimming and track events.

There were other interesting gaps in coverage across NBC’s programming. Men’s basketball received 43 minutes of coverage, compared to just under nine minutes for the women’s game. Coverage of diving and swimming favored the men but was nearly equal (a 22-minute gap over 2:52 of diving coverage and a 12-minute gap over 7:30 of swimming), and soccer strongly favored the gold medal-winning women (of nearly 20 minutes of coverage, the USWNT were covered for 17 of them). The largest gap in favor of the men came in track and field, receiving nearly an hour more of coverage across 11-plus hours in NBC’s primetime programming.

NBC only has a finite amount of primetime programming dedicated to covering events, and more coverage of one means less for another. The company’s comprehensive streaming coverage on Peacock has made primetime coverage much less important for viewers to watch their preferred sports or athletes, though it’s still interesting to see what events NBC decides to highlight to a national audience.

[ Five Ring TV ]

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