Tom Cruise-Led Olympics Closing Ceremony Drew 20.8 Million Viewers

More than 20 million people tuned in to watch Tom Cruise’s thrilling spectacle during the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics, which handed over the Olympic flag to Los Angeles. This engaging stunt likely drew even more viewers.

According to an NBC Sports spokesperson, the closing ceremony averaged 20.8 million viewers across both live and primetime showings. However, no detailed viewer numbers for the Cruise segment were provided.

The ceremony was a star-studded event. After a stunning rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner” by H.E.R. on Sunday night, Tom Cruise captivated the audience by rappelling from a zip line off the top of the Stade de France. He retrieved the Olympic flag, high-fived the athletes, and then took off on a motorcycle, riding past the Eiffel Tower to an airport. There, a military plane awaited him.

From there, the action hero flew to Los Angeles, skydived onto the American plains, and ran to the Hollywood sign, where he edited it to display all five Olympic rings and colors. The sequence ended as a bicyclist took the flag and delivered it to iconic American track-and-field athlete Michael Johnson at the L.A. Coliseum.

With that spectacle, the Olympic flag officially passed from Paris to Los Angeles.

Since news of Cruise’s stunt first leaked, it became a highly anticipated part of the ceremony. While the L.A. portion of his action-packed stunt was pre-recorded, its inclusion provided an exciting climax to the event, symbolizing America taking the torch from France.

On the whole, the 2024 Paris Olympics attracted an average total audience of 30.6 million viewers during the combined Paris primetime (2 p.m. ET to 5 p.m. ET) and U.S. primetime (8-11 p.m. ET/PT) time slots. This represents an 82 percent increase from the Tokyo Olympics, which had 16.9 million viewers, according to fast national data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.

The Paris Olympics enjoyed remarkable streaming success, with 23.5 billion minutes streamed, mainly on Peacock. This is 40 percent more than all prior Summer and Winter Olympics combined.

NBC’s broadcast has now won 152 consecutive Summer-Olympics nights, a streak that dates back to the 1988 Seoul Olympics Closing Ceremony. Notably, that ceremony took place in October, not during the summer, and faced competition from a post-NFL “60 Minutes” and CBS’ movie of the week.