Team GB stars urge improved TV coverage after record Winter Olympics success
Team GB’s winter athletes have called for improved year-round broadcasting of their sports after returning home from their most successful Winter Olympics in history.
The squad touched down at Gatwick Airport on Monday carrying a haul of three golds, one silver, and one bronze from the Milano Cortina 2026 Games.
Following record-breaking viewing figures, the delegation is urging broadcasters to make winter disciplines easier to watch between Olympic cycles.
The athletes fear that without consistent exposure, the momentum generated in Italy will dissipate before the 2030 Games in France.
Capitalising on record viewership
Public support surged during the fortnight of competition, with the BBC recording 83 million streams and 26.3 million television viewers.
The favourable European time zone helped drive numbers significantly higher than Beijing 2022, with 5.5 million people tuning into BBC One for the men’s curling final alone.
TNT Sports reported triple-digit percentage growth in viewing hours, while streaming platforms saw engagement exceed the previous Games within just three days.
However, the competitors believe this enthusiasm is being wasted during the four-year gap between events.
Brad Hall, who piloted the four-man bobsleigh, insists that accessibility is the primary hurdle for potential fans.
“It is about televising it,” said Hall.
“A lot of the time it is only put on a YouTube channel. It used to be on the BBC Red Button.”
“The more easily accessible it is, a lot more people will tune into it if it is available. It is an interesting sport, so if it is on TV people will watch it.”
Modernising the coverage
The athletes argue that new audiences recruited during Milano Cortina should not be forced to wait until 2030 to see the sports again.
Greg Cackett, a key member of the bobsleigh crew, believes a savvy digital approach could replicate the success of mainstream football coverage.
“Kids now all watch YouTube, hardly anyone is watching telly anymore,” said Cackett.
“The YouTube stream could be massive if you invest a bit more into it. You could have a studio with a host and a pundit doing what Ski Sunday or Match of the Day does to get people interested.”
Cackett emphasises that the narrative needs to move beyond novelty comparisons to showcase the elite nature of the competition.
“Tell people the characters, the rivalries. It could be so much more than it is,” he added.
“It seems that people are really on our side and really understand the scale of what winter athletes are achieving.”