NBC Partners With Twitter for Olympics

Includes first U.S. Olympics event page; return of Twitter Tracker

By Tim Baysinger -- Broadcasting & Cable, 7/23/2012 4:37:34 PM

With just four days to go until the Opening Ceremonies, NBC Olympics has partnered with Twitter on the London Summer Olympics.

The partnership will include the launch of the first-ever U.S. Olympics event page, which will aggregate content from the athletes' feeds, @NBCOlympics, @Olympics, @USOlympic and more. The event page -- which will be cobranded by NBC Olympics, the International Olympic Committee, and the U.S. Olympic Committee -- will serve as Twitter's home for Olympic news and information in the United States. Twitter will send representatives to work alongside NBC Olympics.

NBCU will promote the event page during Olympic programming and NBC primetime. Also, the NBC Olympic Twitter Tracker, a visual real-time "heat map" that will show where the up-to-the-minute Olympic conversation is taking place, will be brought back.

"With the eyes of the world focused on London, there is no doubt that the conversation on Twitter will rage around the competition, the athletes and the incredible stories from the Games," said Gary Zenkel, president, NBC Olympics. "This partnership with Twitter will enable NBC Olympics to make an enormous contribution to this conversation, bringing to the swarm of attention surrounding the London Games our expertise, depth of content from our years of preparation, and the unique access to the Games only NBC Olympics has in London."

"Twitter has become the roar of the crowd during live sporting events. Partnering with NBC Olympics to create Twitter.com/#Olympics allows us to now shine a spotlight on the best moments within the shared experience of the Olympics and to tell the stories that capture the world's attention," said Chloe Sladden, VP of media, Twitter. "Our unparalleled joint orchestration across NBC Olympics' presentation of the Games on-air, online, on mobile, and on tablet will bring fans closer to every moment of the Olympics."

The 2012 Summer Olympics kick off with the Opening Ceremonies on Friday.