Source: DAMIEN MEYER / Getty
Team USA’s Men’s basketball team won the gold medal for the fifth straight time, but their path wasn’t always straightforward.
Despite boasting some of the world’s best talent—led by
LeBron James,
Steph Curry, and
Kevin Durant—some of the games proved to be more challenging than expected as Steve Kerr often struggled to build chemistry and give everyone ample playing time.
Still, the team must have been doing something right because the 98-87 victory over France in the gold medal match drew in the most viewers since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and was the most streamed event of all the games. Based on fast national data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, the game averaged 19.5 million viewers on NBC and Peacock and peaked at 22.7 million around 5 pm when Team USA started to pull away for the win.
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The French team kept it close until the end when sharp-shooting Golden State Warrior Steph Curry took over. Curry finished the game with 24 points, all three-pointers, in his first Olympic appearance.
“That was an unbelievable moment. I’ve been blessed to play basketball at a high level for a very long time. I don’t know, this ranks very, very high in terms of the excitement and the sense of relief getting to the finish line,”
Curry said in an on-court interview.
He was followed by LeBron James, who scored 14 points and ten assists to nab his third gold medal. Kevin Durant’s 15-point performance helped him become the first men’s basketball player to win four gold medals. Durant also made USA basketball history, becoming the team’s leading scorer with 518 points.
The ladies were shown love too on Saturday when the U.S. Women’s National Team beat out Germany 1-0 in the gold medal soccer match. With about 9 million viewers on NBA and Peacock, it was the most-watched gold medal soccer game since the 2004 Athens Olympics.
See how social media reacted to the contest below.
