The world’s greatest sporting event, The Olympic Games took place this year in Tokyo from 23rd July, 2021 to 8th August, 2021. Over the course of the games there was about 5,000 hours of uploaded content and daily views averaging more than 190 million! Let’s have a look at How the Tokyo Olympics played out on YouTube.
YouTube “worked with broadcasters around the world to deliver the most comprehensive viewing experience, including live streams of opening and closing ceremonies, clips of memorable moments, highlights of all the action across the 33 Olympic sports, and athlete content straight from Tokyo.” During the Tokyo 2020 Olympics “YouTube viewers watched over 200 million hours of Olympic Games content (counting historic Olympic Games and Tokyo) on YouTube. That’s seven times the amount of hours of Olympic Games content watched on YouTube during Rio 2016.” YouTube said in their official blog. The content was viewed five times more than the daily average views of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
YouTube wrote: “From beginning to end, YouTube remained an important place for fans to find community and catch up on the incredible sporting moments. In just two weeks, the Olympic YouTube Channel alone grew from 6 million subscribers to 7.9 million subscribers.“
Let’s have at the best moments that stood out during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics:
Indian Athlete Neeraj Chopra Winning Gold in the Javelin
Neeraj Chopra became India’s first-ever track and field athlete to win an Olympic gold. Surprisingly, he learned how to throw using YouTube!
The Shared Gold Medal
Qatar’s Mutaz Barshim and Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi gave a dramatic end to the Olympic high jump final by sharing the gold medal!
Simone Biles
Simone’s decision to withdraw from competition over mental health concerns sparked a worldwide dialogue.
Olympians and Creators
Several Olympians who are also creators provided daily diaries of life at the games. Let’s have a look at them:
Tom Daley
Tom Daley who is a British Gold Medal Diver surpassed 4.3 million views with his #DaleyDiaries.
Rommel Pacheco
Rommel, who is Daley’s good friend, had a total of 1M views during the Games which included “training and how-to content.” 14% of his traffic came from Shorts.
McKayla Skinner
McKayla is part of the USA Gymnastics team. She gave “an honest, intimate look into the stresses and strains of competing in the Olympic Games.“