The Olympics Aren’t a Two-Week Event Anymore. They’re an Open Arena.

The biggest shift in sports media is not the move from linear TV to streaming. It is what happens around the competition. The Olympics now live in an “open arena,” the digital extension of the Games where attention builds well before opening night, peaks during live competition, and stays elevated long after the medals are awarded.¹

That momentum is already visible heading into Milano Cortina 2026. For the first time in more than a decade, NHL players will be eligible to compete in Olympic hockey, reintroducing the sport’s biggest stars to the Olympic stage and reigniting fan interest well ahead of the Games. That renewed attention is showing up across other Winter Olympic disciplines as well. According to Teads’ proprietary Media Barometer, page views tied to key Winter Olympic sports have accelerated sharply since mid-October. For example, interest in figure skating has increased by more than 340%, while searches related to speed skating are up 225%. Snowboarding content has grown by nearly 86%, and alpine skiing has more than doubled, increasing 108% over the same period.²

This matters because the Olympics remain one of the few global tentpole moments that still deliver mass reach while activating multi-screen behavior at scale. Paris 2024 reached more than three billion unique viewers across linear TV and digital platforms, with 1.4 billion tuning in to the opening and closing ceremonies alone.³ These numbers are increasingly rare in modern media and underscore why the Olympics continue to command advertiser interest.

Milano Cortina 2026 adds another dimension. Hosted across Northern Italy’s most iconic mountain regions, the Winter Games will feature more than 3,500 athletes from 93 countries competing for 195 medals across 16 Olympic disciplines, alongside six Paralympic sports.⁴ The scale is global, but the engagement is deeply local, particularly in European markets where national pride and cultural participation run high.

Attention Starts in the Living Room and Continues on the Open Internet

Teads’ newest field study on Live Sports across nine countries examines how audiences are watching major sports moments, including the Olympics. The findings reflect viewing behavior across the US, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan, Australia, and Mexico, highlighting both market-level differences and consistent global patterns.¹

Italy, the host market, illustrates these shifts clearly. While linear TV remains dominant, Connected TV (CTV) plays a meaningful and growing role. Nearly half of Italians (47.0%) follow live sports via CTV, rising by nine points among high-interest sports fans. At the same time, second-screen behavior is now the norm, with 57.2% saying they often use another device during live sports moments.¹

That second-screen behavior becomes even more pronounced by generation in Italy. Among younger audiences, 64.8% of Gen Z report that they often second-screen during live sports, rising to 77.0% among Millennials.¹

What makes this especially relevant is the breadth of the Olympic audience itself. Olympic fandom in Italy extends well beyond the traditional sports superfan. Seventeen percent of Italians identify as Olympics superfans, 40% as dedicated fans, and 35% as casual fans.¹ Casual fans bring scale. Dedicated fans bring frequency. Superfans bring intensity. Together, they create an environment where brands outside traditional sports categories can participate credibly.

When Italians compare major sporting events, the Olympics hold their own across all levels of engagement. Forty percent classify themselves as dedicated Olympics fans, while 35% consider themselves casual fans.¹ The Games are not a niche passion point. They are a shared cultural moment.

As Olympic moments unfold, audiences actively seek out related information across the open internet. Search engines remain the primary discovery channel, with nearly half of fans using search to discover brands and professional players during major sports tournaments. News sites and sports sites follow closely behind, reinforcing the role of trusted editorial environments during live moments.¹

CTV also plays a discovery role, alongside social platforms, sports apps, and emerging AI-powered tools. Olympic discovery is distributed across high-attention, high-trust environments. Brands that rely on a single channel miss where curiosity and intent are actually forming.

Gen Z and Millennials Are Watching Differently and Acting Faster

Globally, younger audiences engage with the Olympics differently than older generations. For Gen Z and Millennials, the Games are not just something to watch. They are something to actively engage with. Second-screening is standard behavior, not a distraction, as fans move between live coverage, social feeds, highlights, commentary, and commerce while events unfold.¹

Across markets, CTV plays a central role in that experience. Globally, 43.8% of Gen Z say they follow major sports moments via CTV, rising to 57.6% among Millennials and 61.5% among Gen X, before dropping to 30.6% among Baby Boomers.¹

This generational spread makes the Olympics one of the few moments where brands can reach multiple age cohorts simultaneously on the biggest screen, then reinforce messaging in environments where discovery, consideration, and action take place.

Olympic Audiences Are Open to Brands in Context

Beyond how audiences watch and discover, the data shows a meaningful shift in how they engage with brands during Olympic moments. Compared to all sports moments, audiences following the Winter Olympics are more open across key dimensions of brand interaction. They are more likely to trust brands not commonly associated with sports, more willing to learn about brands, and more inclined to try something new.¹

That openness spans categories. While food and beverage and sportswear remain highly visible, the Olympics create space for entertainment, travel, technology, automotive, beauty, financial services, and retail brands to participate meaningfully.¹ The audience is large, diverse, and receptive enough to support brands well beyond core sports categories.

Relevance Is the Creative Advantage

In an environment as saturated as the Olympics, relevance plays a meaningful role in driving impact. Nearly seven in ten consumers globally (69%) say they are more likely to click on an ad when it is relevant to the content they are viewing.⁴ Creative that reflects the tone of the tournament and the surrounding cultural moment consistently outperforms generic messaging.¹

The takeaway is not about louder creative. It is about more contextual creative. Brands that feel native to the moment see higher engagement and stronger brand connection, particularly when messaging aligns with how and where audiences are consuming content.

Olympic Omnichannel Presence Drives Recall and Purchase

The Olympics offer one of the clearest demonstrations that omnichannel is not a buzzword, but a performance driver. Globally, more than half of fans say that advertising across multiple screens increases brand recall (52.6%) and likelihood to purchase (55.9%).¹ Among high-interest sports fans, those effects are even stronger, with 59.7% reporting higher brand recall and 63.8% indicating greater purchase likelihood when exposed to advertising across screens.¹

Importantly, this performance opportunity extends across income levels. Fifty-four percent of core household spenders, 58% of discretionary spenders, and 68% of affluent spenders say they are open to trying new brands they discover while following the Olympics¹

Repeated exposure compounds this effect. Research shows that seeing a brand’s message multiple times can increase purchase likelihood by 10–20%, reinforcing the importance of frequency and sequencing across screens during the Games.⁶

What This Means for Brands Around Milano Cortina 2026

The Olympics are no longer confined to a broadcast window. They unfold across days, devices, and digital environments.

Brands that succeed treat the Games as a multi-touch journey. They build reach in the living room, extend relevance into the open web, design for second-screen behavior, and invest in frequency rather than one-off moments.

The opportunity isn’t just to be seen. It’s to show up where attention is highest and intent is already forming.

To explore more insights, download the full report.

Sources

¹ Teads and Censuswide, 2026 Sports Moments / Open Arena Study

² Teads Proprietary Media Barometer, 2025

³ International Olympic Committee, IOC Marketing Report: Paris 2024

⁴ Milano Cortina 2026 Organizing Committee

⁵ DoubleVerify, 2025

⁶ Nielsen; Obermiller & Spangenberg (2019), Journal of Advertising Research