A Cable Cutters Guide to Watching the 2022 Winter Olympics
February 6, 2022
Less than a year after the pandemic-postponed Tokyo Summer Olympics, the 2022 Winter Olympics opened this week in Beijing, China (February 4th). They will be broadcast in the US on NBC and its affiliated networks.
The games will be subject to pandemic restrictions, including limited in-person attendance, and NBC’s hosts will be broadcasting remotely from the US But the games will go on, with thousands of athletes participating in dozens of events. So how do we watch here at home? With NBC broadcasting the games, how do cord cutters watch? Here’s how to stream the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The opening ceremony kicked off the Olympics with an elaborate extravaganza celebrating the Games’ host country and showcasing the athletes who are competing. The 2022 opening ceremony took place inside Beijing National Stadium, with a special focus on environmental themes. The opening ceremony was directed by renowned Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, who also directed the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Even before the official kick-off at the opening ceremony, NBC and its sibling networks USA and CNBC will be showing a wide range of Winter Olympics events. The 2022 Games encompass 100-plus events across 15 different sports. That includes popular winter sports like figure skating, hockey, snowboarding and curling. The seven new events this year include big air freestyle skiing, women’s monobob sledding, and a mixed team relay in short track speed skating.
All of the coverage from NBC, CNBC, and USA, in addition to exclusive broadcasts and live streams of every Olympic event, can be streamed on the premium tier of Peacock ($4.99+ per month or $49.99 per year).
Subscribers to the following can watch the NBC, CNBC, and USA coverage via those respective channels:
- Fubo TV ($64.99+ per month after a seven-day free trial)
- Hulu + Live TV ($69.99+ per month)
- YouTube TV ($64.99 per month after a seven-day free trial),
- DirecTV Stream ($69.99+ per month)
- Sling TV ($35+ per month after a seven-day free trial)
As he did with the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou will serve as the director of both the opening and closing ceremonies. The closing ceremony will take place at Beijing National Stadium, ending the 2022 Olympic Games. Per Olympics custom, it will celebrate the culture of the next host city, which is Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy, where the 2026 Winter Olympics will be held. They will be the fourth Olympic Games hosted in Italy (Cortina d’Ampezzo previously hosted the 1956 Winter Olympics), and the first hosted in Milan. It will be the first Winter Olympics since Sarajevo 1984 that the opening and closing ceremonies will be held in different places.
The 2022 Winter Olympics closing ceremony will air on Sunday, February 20, 2022, at 7am ET/4am PT on NBC. The ceremony can be streamed on the premium tier of Peacock. Subscribers to Fubo TV, Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, DirecTV Stream and Sling TV can watch the ceremony via the NBC live stream.
Subscribing to these platforms is an easy, immediate solution to watching the Olympics but over-the-air antenna reception is also an option for cord cutters. If you’re just thinking of watching the action, streaming is probably your best route at this point, as long as you have a good internet connection. The reason is installing an antenna for over-the-air reception right now could have you missing the action due to what can be a complicated project. If an over-the-air antenna is in your plans, check out my post Cutting the Cord Part 2 — TV Antennas.
As you can see there are multiple options for streaming all the Olympic competition. It’s events like this that will help further drive adoption of streaming platforms. The challenge in the past has been local and live coverage which is now being addressed on multiple services.
Debbie and I enjoy AppleTV, Hulu, Paramount+, HBOmax, Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+ and Starz. As I now see this written down it looks like overkill or we’re a serious couple of couch potatoes. But besides the Olympics, we subscribe to catch some of our favorites like Ted Lasso, Yellowstone, Outlander, Dexter, Vikings, Stranger Things and the endless selections of movies that come and go. Disney+ is for the grandkids but I have to admit I’ve liked it as well for The Mandalorian and Boba Fett.
Have you cut the cord yet? Are you considering it? What streaming services do you subscribe to? Are there other services we should be considering? Let us know in the comments, DMs and email as we love hearing from our friends out there. Until next week …
In full disclosure, I’m not an affiliate marketer with links to any online retailer on my website. When people read what I’ve written about a particular product and then click on those links and buy something from the retailer, I earn nothing from the retailer. The links are strictly a convenience for my readers.
