YouTube viewers spent 40B minutes (or 76,000 years) watching the Paris Olympics

Now that the Olympic Games Paris 2024 is officially behind us, it’s time for some statistics. YouTube offers some pretty interesting insights!

YouTube collaborated with official broadcasting partners like NBCUniversal, Eurosport, Claro Sports, and CazéTV to provide a comprehensive viewing experience for fans globally. This included thousands of hours of official Olympic content, highlights, and replays across 32 different sports.

The response to Paris 2024 content on YouTube was immense. During the event, YouTube viewers watched over 40 billion minutes (that’s more than 650 million hours) of Olympics content, spread across the official Olympics YouTube channel and the channels of official broadcasters.

This content garnered over 12 billion views, with more than 850 million unique viewers tuning in. The Official Olympics YouTube Channel alone gained over 1.1 million new subscribers during the Games.

To put this viewership into perspective, 40 billion minutes is an astronomical amount of time. It equates to about 76,000 years of continuous viewing. It’s also roughly equivalent to the time it would take to watch over 49 million feature-length films back-to-back!

It’s clear that YouTube played a significant role in how people enjoyed the Olympics, especially from the comfort of their living rooms. During Paris 2024, more than 18 billion minutes of content were watched on connected TVs, accounting for over 35% of total watch time. Additionally, over 180 million unique viewers streamed Olympics content on their TVs, resulting in 1.9 billion views from living rooms alone.

In addition to the extensive coverage, official broadcasters and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) brought over 30 prominent YouTube creators to Paris.

This roster included Rick Azas from Eurosport, Liza Baez from Claro Sports, Haley Kalil, Carter Kench, Kristy Scott from NBCUniversal, and others like Sydney Morgan, Ian Boggs, and RJ Karishma from the IOC, allowing viewers to experience the Games through the unique perspectives of their favorite influencers.