The opening ceremony for the 2018 Winter Olympics will take place on Friday in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Given the 14-hour time difference between Korea and the Eastern United States, American viewers have two choices: Develop temporary insomnia, or find some other way to witness the top moments of the Winter Games.
For those who choose the second option, YouTube will be a valuable resource. The video site has announced its plan to offer “select” Olympics highlights for viewers in several regions. In the US, for example, NBC will share some clips from the Games with YouTube viewers.
In order to build hype for the upcoming international competition, YouTube shared some data about winter sports in a blog post. It revealed, for example, that ice hockey received more global YouTube views in 2017 than any other sport, with figure skating in second and skiing in third. A map included in the post show that hockey has a particularly large following in the US, which goes a long way toward explaining the sport’s popularity on US-based YouTube.
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This map raises a pressing question. Why is curling, of all sports, so popular in Africa, the Middle East, and India? The easiest answer is that those snowless regions have little interest in the Winter Games, thus limiting the amount of relevant data points their citizens produce. YouTube, however, is hoping that the developing world will take a more serious interest in this year’s competition. In nations like India, the 2018 Winter Olympics will be available for free via the official Olympics YouTube channel.
