Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and LeBron James not only brought the United States an Olympic gold medal.
They delivered massive viewership numbers as well.
NBC said on Sunday that the U.S. Men’s Basketball Team’s thrilling 98-87 victory over France averaged 19.5 million viewers on NBC and Peacock based on fast national data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics. The company said it was the most-watched gold medal game since the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. The game peaked at 22.7 million viewers from 5-5:15 p.m. ET in the final quarter of the game.
It was the fifth consecutive gold medal for the U.S. in basketball. The gold medal game was a massive viewership jump from the final in Tokyo, which drew 9.3 million viewers as well as Rio (11.7 million).
“We got our moment,” said James following the win. “It’s a basketball world. Everybody loves the game. We just hope that we continue to inspire people all over the world.”
The U.S-France meeting was also the most-streamed event of the Paris Olympics across NBCU digital properties with an average minute audience of 2.7 million viewers.
NBC on Sunday also announced the viewership for the women’s gold medal soccer game: The U.S. Women’s National Team’s 1-0 victory over Brazil averaged approximately 9.0 million viewers on NBC and…
