Snap has signed a deal with NBCU for the '18 PyeongChang Games that will make Snapchat a "home for Olympic-themed content and allow NBCUniversal to sell Games-related geofilters and 'lenses' to advertisers for the first time," according to Ramachandran & Farrell of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. The deal "expands upon a similar partnership" for the '16 Rio Games, and will "allow Snapchat to share clips of NBC’s Olympics content in a live story that will also feature user content." Snapchat also "will carry coverage of the Games that BuzzFeed will co-produce with NBC for the Snapchat Discover media hub." Sources said that ad commitments tied to the deal "could come in" between $50-75M in Q1 '18. As in the prior deal, NBC "will be able to sell ad slots on its Snapchat video content." While NBC’s game highlights will "likely appear on many online platforms, including Facebook and YouTube, Snap will exclusively have some original Olympics-related content cocreated by BuzzFeed and NBC on its platform." NBC President of Olympics & Business Gary Zenkel said that Snap has "never before allowed a partner to sell national filters and lenses to marketers, a sign of the deepening relationship between the two companies" since NBCU invested $500M in Snap as part of its March initial public offering (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 3/30). VARIETY's Todd Spangler noted last year for the Rio Games NBCU saw "nearly 35 million Snapchat users in the U.S. consuming NBC’s Olympic coverage totaling over 230 million minutes of content." The "vast majority of the consumption was from Snapchatters under 35." The "Our Stories" Olympics coverage on Snapchat will include "behind-the-scenes and fan moments submitted by users on the ground in PyeongChang and curated by Snapchat" (VARIETY.com, 3/29).
