Peacock's Olympics Coverage Captures the Eye

Written by Leo Gebbie

Anyone who knows me would describe me as a sports enthusiast. I'm a fairly keen runner and cyclist in my spare time, but I'm also a follower of football, cricket, rugby and tennis among many other sports. Since moving to the US, I've started following baseball, and I expect that when the American football season rolls around, I'll probably find a way to get into that as well.

So, as you might expect, the Olympics is something of a non-stop buffet for me. I'm one of those people who'll sit and watch any event, with no background or context, and happily get into the swing of it. Archery, badminton, handball, judo, kayak — you name it, I'll watch it!

Fortunately, this service has been readily available on demand for me over here in the US thanks to the impressive streaming services offered by NBC, which has exclusive rights to the Olympics and is making all sports available through its Peacock streaming app (which, for full visibility, I'm running on an Apple TV box).

I'll admit that the entire landscape of cable TV and streaming options in the US still somewhat overwhelms me — perhaps there's a longer blog piece to be written about this another time. But as one of my first forays into US sports broadcasting, I've had a very good user experience following the world's biggest athletic spectacle.

The experience is undoubtedly helped by consolidated streaming rights, which means that NBC — and, by definition, Peacock — have access to every sport, live and in highlight form, throughout the games. Whether you want to watch the surfing in Tahiti or the beach volleyball under the Eiffel Tower, it's there. But what's impressed me has been the user experience that backs it up.

For example, the Multiview option lets you follow four events at the same time, with seamless switching between split-screen and full-screen views at the push of a button. There's also a continuous stream called the Gold Zone, which moves you rapidly from event to event as key moments unfold and winners are crowned. During half an hour this morning, it's pivoted between basketball, decathlon, fencing, football, shot put, swimming, tennis and more. And if you want to settle into a specific event — like I did for the cycling road races at the weekend — those are also available at a click.

There are all sorts of additional features, including a full schedule, a medal table, a wide array of replays (ranging from full events to clipped highlights) and even the option to follow specific athletes rather than having to go digging into the event schedule. You're a Simone Biles fan and want one place to watch replays of all her gold medal victories? No problem. It's an impressive and ambitious set-up.

This experience is juxtaposed with — as I hear from friends and family back home — a disappointing user experience with the BBC. I've been informed that coverage requires switching back and forth between BBC One and BBC Two or using the unwieldy iPlayer app to navigate events.

I'm sure the experience has been compounded by the fact that the BBC no longer has exclusive Olympics streaming rights, having lost them to discovery+, which can be accessed for just ￡3.99 a month, so the comparison isn't that fair. But watching on Peacock does feel like a more modern experience than anything I remember of BBC streaming at previous Olympics, and it has been very well developed.

It's worth noting that not everything is perfect. For the first day or two of coverage, I had subscribed to the entry-level Premium tier (no, it makes no sense to me either) at $7.99 per month, which was so riddled with ads it was almost unwatchable. I quickly upgraded to Premium Plus at $13.99 to try and escape this, before spotting the small print says that a "small amount of programming will still contain ads". I'd argue it's still not that small, and the constant interruptions do make me miss the BBC's ad-free coverage.

Overall, the experience of watching the Olympics on Peacock has been a great demonstration of how new ideas and good execution can deliver a big step forward in user experience. So often, TV streaming apps are clunky, and personal experience has led me to expect little from large broadcasters who seem content to have viewers sit and watch one channel. Peacock's Olympics coverage might be the experience that changes my view.

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