The next time we tune in to hear the drumbeat of NBC’s Summer Olympics coverage, the torch will be lit in California for the first Summer Olympics in the United States in 34 years. And from the perspective of those who cover the business of sports, the bar couldn’t be higher.

By all accounts, the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics were a triumphant demonstration of the power of global sport, both as an entertainment product and as an inspirational platform through our connection to the shared pursuit of sporting excellence.

The host city – as well as dozens of sports management companies involved behind the scenes in running a nearly flawless three-week event – ​​hosted a safe and welcoming mega-event, created stories that resonated and developed a unique aesthetic that ran through every part of the Paris 2024 presentation. It should be exciting to extend this to the Paralympics, which begin on August 28.

With planning well underway for the 2028 Summer Olympics in LA, leaders at every level of the movement are recognizing the winners beyond the podium of this summer’s flagship event. With our eyes on the 2028 Summer Olympics and a hat tip to everyone involved in the 2024 Olympics in Paris, here’s a roundup of the sports business stories that stood out to me after three spectacular weeks in France.

1. NBC and Peacock find gold: Wow. If you want an example of how to produce and distribute a world-class live sporting event, look no further than NBC Universal’s 2024 Olympics coverage. According to Front Office Sports, the final ratings for the 2024 Summer Olympics were historic, as the 17-day event averaged 30.6 million viewers in the U.S., an 82% increase over the COVID-19 pandemic-impacted 2021 Tokyo Games and the highest average since 2012.

The picturesque television backdrop of Paris was a standout feature of these Games, and Snoop Dogg on a horse talking about dressage made this writer chuckle. But the network’s high ratings and billions of streaming views were also a direct result of NBC’s willingness to experiment and innovative decision-making. Several strategic investments paid off for viewers, athletes, sponsors and national governing bodies, as increased attention to strong storylines and rising stars like USA Rugby’s Ilona Maher created an early halo effect over the Games that lasted through Sunday’s closing ceremony.

One such investment was NBC’s decision to begin marketing the event in earnest more than a year in advance – a first in Olympic sports marketing. The network did not rely solely on sponsors to market the event for it. And when the show came around, we were treated to an Olympic show presented by a strong roster of entertainment voices and personalities, from Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart to SNL’s Colin Jost, “Emily in Paris” actress Lily Collins and “Call Her Daddy” podcaster Alex Cooper. The slow, celebrity-led drumbeat for Paris 2024 effectively built anticipation. Every two years, we see Olympic marketers try to expand the appeal of the Games beyond pure athletic competition to more widely consumed passion topics like reality TV, music and theater, animation, travel and entertainment. This is done on purpose, and the Paris 2024 Games have produced a strong roster of diverse stars. We may have tuned in to see the otherworldly Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, but we stayed for so much more.

NBC also launched its all-access show Gold Zone on Peacock to ensure viewers could share in the most important moments across all sports, whether mainstream or niche. The show was a huge success. Modeled after the NFL’s popular RedZone offering, it gave viewers access to key live content while the channel appealed to younger sports fans who tend to jump between primary (i.e. live TV or streaming) and secondary (social media) content, looking for highlights.

I’m looking forward to asking UMass sports management students on the first day of class how many of them subscribed to Peacock because of the Olympics buzz… and how many will stick with the service in the coming months. This is a major trend in sports media, as streaming services leverage live sports rights to attract and retain subscribers.

2. Introducing Breaking!: So what do we think of the new sports? Breaking, commonly known as breakdancing, and kayakcross were met with mixed reactions when they debuted in Paris. Social media wasted no time in parodying some of the dance routines. It’s too early to tell how these emerging sports will be received, and LA28 will give us even more new competitions to ponder: the IOC recently approved the inclusion of baseball softball, lacrosse sixes, flag football, T20 cricket and squash in LA.

During the McCormack Division’s two-week high school summer camp on the Amherst campus last July, we asked high school students from around the world to draft policies that would embed these new Olympic sports at the grassroots level to ensure youth participation, widespread exposure, and sustained resources for training and promotion. This is harder than it sounds! It certainly helps when you have a league as powerful as the NFL helping to fill the pipeline, as is the case with flag football (NFL Flag). Sports – especially Olympic-level ones – don’t happen in a vacuum.

3. Venues create impact, layout creates complexity: Beach volleyball under the Eiffel Tower, horseback riding at the Palace of Versailles, tennis at Roland Garros, surfing in Tahiti. These Games have reminded us how important iconic venues are to the presentation and broadcast of the Olympics. LA28 will give us stylistically diverse venues, but also some fascinating “firsts,” such as the ever-popular swimming events, which will take place at the Los Angeles Rams’ SoFi Stadium (70,000 capacity). And much like Paris, LA will not be building new venues to handle the volume of competition associated with hosting the Games. That’s both a good thing for the local tax base, which has been asked for far too long to financially support venue development to support the host city’s commitment to the IOC, and interesting from an event management perspective, since competitions will range from Los Angeles to Carson, Inglewood and Long Beach.

What sparked your interest in these unique Olympic Games? From social media exposure to medal controversies, Noah Lyles’ narrow 100m victory to Simone Biles’ coronation, the answer is likely different depending on who you ask. That’s the beauty of the Olympics.

Whatever your passion, McCormack College’s Department of Sport Management is proud to prepare students to work within this legendary sporting spectacle. Most recently, approximately 15 graduates have worked within the Olympic Movement, from the IOC to the USOPC to national governing bodies (also known as Olympic teams).

Will Norton is a lecturer in the Mark H. McCormack Department of Sport Management at UMass. He teaches courses in sports sponsorship and sport and new media and is also the director of the McCormack Center for Sport Research and Education.