---
title: "Video viewing on an Olympic scale"
description: "Beijing Olympics fans are going online to find the videos they want, when they want them."
date: "2008-08-14"
authors:
  - name: "Mary Madden"
    job_title: "Former Senior Researcher"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/mary-madden/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2008/08/14/video-viewing-on-an-olympic-scale/"
categories:
  - "Digital News Landscape"
  - "Social Media"
  - "Video"
tags:
  - "Video"
---

# Video viewing on an Olympic scale

According to the Torrent tracking site, [TorrentFreak](http://torrentfreak.com/millions-download-olympics-via-bittorrent-080812/), the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics was the most-downloaded television show for the week of August 3-10th. With well over one million downloads, demand for the opening ceremony far surpassed the interest in other popular shows like "Mad Men" and "So You Think You Can Dance." As [various blogs have reported](http://newteevee.com/2008/08/11/pirating-the-olympics-via-p2p-tv-an-experiment/), Olympics fans can find P2P streams or Torrent files that are made available before the official broadcasts, as well as HD or iPod-ready versions of the events.

Americans' interest in sports-related video online is not new, but it's likely getting a big boost from Olympics content driving users to the Web. In our [2007 "Online Video" report,](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/Reports/2007/Online-Video.aspx) we found that 14% of adult internet users had specifically downloaded or watched sports-related video. Among younger users ages 18-29, the number watching sports video was much higher at 24%. However, that data was gathered before the 2008 Super Bowl and well before the heavily-promoted Beijing games. With [NBC](http://www.nbc.com/) and the [official Beijing Olympics page](http://en.beijing2008.cn/) providing official online video coverage through their sites, [YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/) users uploading "unofficial" content, and [Torrent files](http://valleywag.com/5033727/olympic-bittorrent-optimization-for-dummies) floating everywhere in between, consuming all of this Olympic video may need to become an event of its own.