With the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games underway, albeit in 2021, fans will have plenty of ways to watch the excitement and pageantry — from large-screen TVs at home to streaming on a smartphone.
Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of D.C., which means many Tokyo evening events will take place in the early morning hours here.
While people of a certain age might remember the entire family gathering around the television for nightly pre-recorded primetime coverage, NBC, as the sole distributor of the Games in the U.S., will be offering live coverage on several of its cable channels.
In addition to live programming on NBC, the network’s Olympic website pulls together events that can be streamed, although a cable subscription is needed to view it all.
The NBC cable channels include NBC Sports, NBC’s Olympics Channel, CNBC and The Golf Channel. Telemundo and Universo will provide coverage in Spanish.
NBC’s streaming service, Peacock, requires an account, with monthly subscriptions between $5 and $10, although basic Olympics highlights will be streamed for free.
Roku users will see an Olympics dashboard from their main screen and can view highlights or add channels, which provide live or in-depth recorded coverage, for the cost of a subscription.
Many streaming companies are offering trial periods during the Olympics.
Hulu is offering the chance to sample programming through NBC channels, including live, on-demand and highlights. Hulu with live TV costs $65 monthly.
YouTube TV will stream the Olympics coverage from the NBC networks, at a cost of $65 per month. Its 4K Plus streaming on the Olympic Channel and Golf Channel costs an extra $20 monthly.
Sling TV’s Blue package, FuboTV and AT&T TV will carry packages of NBC’s coverage.
