The news: YouTube and NBCUniversal will expand their creator-driven Olympic model for the Milano Cortina 2026 games after strong results from Paris 2024.

• Top YouTubers will document the journeys of forty Team USA Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls across sports like curling, skating, and track, posting exclusive content throughout the trials and Games.
• Access will extend into Athlete Village and other restricted areas, while NBCUniversal’s Creator Collective adds podcast and mobile documentary formats to amplify the Games’ cultural reach.

YouTube positions creators as essential to reaching younger Olympic fans who trust digital personalities more than traditional commentators. According to YouGov, sports, fitness, and health creators attract roughly four in ten young men in the US and UK.

This generational shift aligns with broader viewing habits. At Paris 2024, YouTube captured 17% of all global Olympic engagement, drawing 850 million unique viewers and generating twelve billion cumulative views.

Why it matters: The program reflects how Olympics fandom now flows through creators, not just broadcasters.

• Nearly half of global sports fans follow sports influencers, rising to 59% among adults ages 18 to 44. Their top interests—game highlights (34%) and personal-life updates (31%), per YouGov—show why creator-led storytelling resonates: It fuses athletic drama with authentic, character-driven narratives.
• Behind-the-scenes moments like interactions with teammates (21%) or celebrities (10%) boost engagement, but the emotional draw remains athletes’ real-time experiences. YouTube’s embedded creators will capture those from trials to training to village life, NBCU says. Globally, younger male fans anchor this audience, increasingly viewing creators as trusted guides who make elite sports feel relatable.
• YouTube’s Olympic footprint is still smaller than traditional broadcasters’, but it’s growing quickly. Its creator-led format matches how younger audiences consume sports—mobile, on-demand, and personality-driven—positioning YouTube as a key hub for Olympic discovery, highlights, and cultural context.

What it means for marketers:

• Brands that want to reach younger sports fans should prioritize creator collaborations that blend athletic performance with personality-driven storytelling.
• Highlight-based formats still matter most, but creators who can pair highlights with personal narratives deliver the strongest lift in trust and engagement.
• YouTube deserves a larger share of Olympic-era media planning. With 850 million unique viewers during Paris 2024, it provides scale comparable to major broadcasters while enabling highly targeted creator partnerships.
• Sports influencers are now a global gateway to fandom. Nearly half of sports fans follow them, and performance is strongest in age groups with the highest buying power and digital consumption.
• For campaigns tied to live events, marketers should design flexible creative that can move across YouTube, short-form social video, podcast integrations, and creator-owned channels to match how fans follow the Games.