How NBCUniversal Is Engaging Viewers For Its Biggest Month Ever: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Legendary February
January 28, 2026
Left to right: Chris McCloskey, Senior Vice President, Communications, NBC Sports; Molly Solomon, Executive Producer & President, NBC Olympics & Paralympics Production; Snoop Dogg, Rick Cordella, President, NBC Sports; Jenny Storms, Chief Marketing Officer, NBCUniversal Television & Streaming at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games
As NBC marks its 100th year, NBCUniversal remains committed to what has defined it for generations: delivering the biggest events, boldest stories, and most impactful experiences – all with the purpose of bringing people together in powerful new ways. This year, NBCUniversal's Legendary February celebrates the network's centennial with a historic, integrated, and forward-thinking moment that reimagines how audiences experience major cultural events. By elevating the Olympics into a year‑round pop‑culture franchise, amplifying athlete and celebrity storytelling, and harnessing the full strength of NBCUniversal's Symphony across platforms, the company is driving unprecedented fan engagement. Paired with high-quality innovations across platforms – including an AI-powered concierge and a unified destination for the Olympics, Super Bowl LX, and NBA All-Star Weekend – NBCUniversal is delivering its most personalized, accessible, and immersive viewing experience ever.
Jenny Storms, Chief Marketing Officer, NBCUniversal Television & Streaming, shares the strategy behind bringing Legendary February to life for fans everywhere.
Q: What is Legendary February, and how is it different from anything NBCUniversal has done before?
A: Legendary February is NBCUniversal's month‑long, companywide event anchored by three marquee events: the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, Super Bowl LX, and NBA All‑Star Weekend.
What makes it unlike anything NBCUniversal has ever done is the scale and cohesion of the strategy. Rather than promoting each event in isolation, the company is building a seamless, interconnected experience that intentionally carries audiences from one tentpole to the next. Legendary February also represents the first Winter Games of our reinvented Olympic marketing campaign – an approach proven during Paris 2024 and now being expanded even further.
It's a fully integrated, cross‑platform, cross‑company cultural moment – the biggest demonstration yet of the power of Symphony.
Jenny Storms, Chief Marketing Officer, NBCUniversal Television & Streaming at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics
Q: You've said we’re marketing the Olympics as a franchise. What does that mean?
A: Treating the Olympics as a franchise means no longer positioning it as a one‑off, 17‑day sporting event. Instead, NBCUniversal is presenting it as a year‑round cultural property that lives in pop culture, entertainment, and conversation long before the Opening Ceremony – from flame to flame.
This approach includes continuous athlete storytelling, editorial, celebrity partnerships, cross-platform integrations, and year-round promotional activity. The goal is that by the time the Games begin, the Olympics aren't just an event people tune in for – they're already the hottest cultural topic in the country.
Keeping the Games culturally relevant and top of mind for consumers is something the whole company is bought into as we leverage Symphony and the culture of collaboration to deliver promotion across every division and at scale – TV, streaming, film, theme parks, news, sports, late night, digital, and more. We bring the Olympics closer to consumers every day with real-life moments such as the Olympic rings traveling across America or a nationwide fleet of Milan-branded scooters appearing at major NBCU events, college campuses, and entertainment hotspots. An exciting new focus going into Milan has been on the younger generations and youth-focused platforms, including a forthcoming partnership with Roblox.
Q: How are you using athletes and NBCU talent to reach new audiences?
A: Athletes are at the center of the strategy – the "main cast" of this cinematic event. NBCUniversal is elevating them like never before through Project Fortius, our athlete-branding program that builds their personal brands years before the Games. With social media a part of our daily work, we are taking that experience and leadership and partnering with Olympians and Paralympians to educate them on social media and how to grow their fanbases. The Paris pilot generated 3.8M new social followers for 15 athletes in a short amount of time and Milan's group of 12 winter athletes has already added over 400k new followers.
We also maintain a focus on storytelling across all our platforms, featuring Olympians on TODAY, in entertainment shows, on Sunday Night Football, and across digital and social platforms. And our biggest opportunity for athlete storytelling has come through the iconic celebrity partnerships we started for the Paris Olympics and have continued into Milan. These celebrity campaigns often have the athletes as the main characters and shine a light on their athleticism and personality. They include Glenn Powell with speed skater Jordan Stolz; Scarlett Johansson and skier Lindsey Vonn; Cynthia Erivo and curlers Korey Dropkin and Cory Thiesse; Ariana Grande and figure skater Alysa Liu; How to Train Your Dragon's fictional dragon Toothless meeting figure skater Ilia Malinin; Dua Lipa spotlighting Mikaela Shiffrin, Lindsey Vonn, Chloe Kim, and Alysa Liu; Jon Hamm and Team USA hockey players; and Illumination's Minions with snowboarder Chloe Kim.
Jenny Storms, Chief Marketing Officer, NBCUniversal Television & Streaming at the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics
Q: Can you outline the strategy behind how Legendary February serves as a key launchpad for content and promotional efforts across the entire company?
A: Having the Milan Olympics, Super Bowl, and NBA All-Star Weekend all in one month creates a massive, cross‑platform promotional launchpad for the whole portfolio. These events bring large audiences and engagement across NBC and Peacock, giving the company the ability to promote new shows from NBC, Peacock, and Bravo, returning franchises, and to support brand efforts for this year's NBC100. The hundreds of millions of viewers concentrated in this window also allow us to extend promotion to Universal Film, Universal Destinations & Experiences, NBC News, Telemundo, and more. NBCU can use the entire month across live sports, streaming, broadcast, and digital to push viewers from these tentpole events toward their next piece of entertainment content. The simultaneous cultural momentum of the Olympics, Super Bowl LX, and NBA All‑Star Weekend creates company‑wide excitement, drives sampling, fuels discovery, and provides unparalleled promotional real estate.
