The Equitable Games: Camera Time for Men and Women at the 2024 Paris Olympics on NBC

This study assessed the camera time dedicated to men and women athletes at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris through the lens of agenda-setting theory. Within the global sports-media landscape, women have largely been sidelined, receiving little coverage compared with their male counterparts. This trend, according to agenda setting, suggests that women’s sports are less important than the oft-covered men’s sports. However, for the past decade, NBC’s broadcast of the Olympics has dedicated more coverage to women’s sports; this study sought to uncover whether that agenda remained for Paris 2024. An analysis of the entirety of NBC’s Olympic programming, consisting of both the prime-time broadcasts and the additional coverage featured on NBC throughout each day and night, yielded nearly 235 hr of Olympic content. Coding consisted of measuring the total amount of time dedicated to each event, distinguishing between whether the event was a men’s, women’s, or mixed-gender sport. In the 57 hr of prime-time coverage, women received slightly more coverage than men at 52.08% of the time on camera, the smallest margin to date and the least they have received in a Summer Olympics since overtaking men in camera time during the London 2012 Games. During the non-prime-time NBC coverage, which amounted to 178 total hours, women, again, received the majority of clock time, accounting for 52.49% of the camera time, though less than they received in the non-prime-time hours during the Tokyo Games. Differences by sport were uncovered with women receiving more gymnastics coverage than men in prime time, whereas men were covered more in track and field and diving. Unlike previous years, beach volleyball received less than 5 min of combined coverage in prime time. Ramifications for these broadcast trends are discussed, specifically pertaining to how NBC’s agenda for Paris 2024 was the most equitable on record.