NBC Olympics TV and streaming schedule for July 26: How to watch the Opening Ceremony

This year’s Opening Ceremony might be the most-anticipated in Olympics history, but it’s also a huge risk.

Instead of having the event in a stadium, French organizers have been planning for years to have the spectacle unfold with a parade down the Seine River, right through the middle of Paris. It will stretch for nearly four miles, starting in the east end of the city and floating west to the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

Around 300,000 spectators are expected to attend, with 100,000 paying for close-up seats and a further 200,000 getting free tickets along the route. As big as those numbers are, they’re just half of what the original intent was, until security concerns caused the French government to cut the scale.

All 206 delegations will be in the parade, adding up to some 10,000 participants spread over hundreds of boats. And you can be sure there will be lots of police patrols out on the water around them. Greece will go first as always, being where the Olympics were founded, with basketball star Giannis Antetokounmpo as one of its flag-bearers. Then the worldwide refugee team will go.

The U.S. will go next-to-last since it’s the host of the next Summer Olympics, in 2028 in Los Angeles, and this year’s host France will go last. Basketball star LeBron James and tennis star Coco Gauff will be the Americans’ flag-bearers. The group of officials will have a big Philly flavor thanks to First Lady Jill Biden and North Philly-born women’s basketball legend Dawn Staley.

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NBC’s broadcast setup will be just as big as the show itself. There will be a combined 400 cameras between NBC’s and those of Olympics Broadcast Services, which produces the world feed you see for a lot of events online, and a further 200 camera phones with people on the route.

Mike Tirico, NBC’s lead Olympics host, will host the broadcast with former NFL star Peyton Manning — whom NBC would surely love to have on its NFL coverage some day — and musician and talk show host Kelly Clarkson, from near where the route finishes.

NBC’s main Olympics studio is on the Place du Trocadéro, straight across the river from the Eiffel Tower. The backdrop is obvious, but you’ll also recognize it if you watched Fox’s 2019 women’s World Cup soccer coverage, because it’s at the same place.

Rapper Snoop Dogg, who will be a big part of NBC’s prime time coverage, will be on a bridge over the Seine; and veteran “Today” show hosts Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb will be on another bridge. (NBC hasn’t said which bridges, presumably for security reasons.)

Finally, Maria Taylor will report from the Team USA float, Melissa Stark will report from the red carpet arrival ceremony, and Andrea Joyce will report from other places along the way.

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NBC’s coverage starts at noon Philadelphia time, with the ceremony expected to start at around 1:30 p.m. and end just before 6. An edited version of the event will be televised in prime time on NBC at 7:30. Steven Spielberg will narrate the opening montage film, titled “Land of Stories.”

Telemundo will have live Spanish coverage of the ceremony, marking the first time an Opening Ceremony has been shown live on Spanish-language U.S. television. Miguel Gurwitz. Jessica Carrillo, and Julio Vaqueiro will host the coverage.

Both live broadcasts will be available online at NBCSports.com and Peacock (the latter with a subscription). Replays, including the commercial-free world feed, will be available starting early Saturday morning.

NBC has lots of coverage on its broadcast and cable channels: the main NBC network, USA, CNBC, E!, and Golf Channel in English; and free-to-air Telemundo and cable channel Universo in Spanish. USA’s coverage is 24/7 every day, with live events when they’re on and replays the rest of the time.

There are also two extra cable channels created specifically for the Olympics called Paris Extra 1 and Paris Extra 2. All the big cable and satellite providers have them, as well as YouTube TV, Sling, FuboTV, and Hulu Live.

This year, the traditional NBC prime time show doesn’t have live action. Instead, it has highlights of the day and storytelling features. The good news is NBC has live coverage from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Philadelphia time on weekdays and even more on weekends, with the big events shown live in the afternoon here.

Every event is available to stream live on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app. You’ll have to log in with your pay-TV provider, whether it’s cable, satellite, or streaming platforms including YouTube TV, FuboTV and Sling TV. If you aren’t a pay-TV subscriber, you can watch via the premium tier of Peacock, NBC’s online streaming service. A subscription starts at $7.99 per month or $79.99 per year.

The NBC Sports and Peacock apps are available for mobile devices, tablets, and connected-TV devices including Android TV, Apple TV, Google Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Samsung TV, and more. There’s a FAQ page on NBC’s website here with more details.

If you have a Comcast Xfinity X1 cable box, just say “Olympics” into the remote’s voice control function, and everything will come up whether it’s on TV or online. Other cable and satellite TV providers may offer similar functions.

Here is the full event schedule for the entire Olympics, and here are live scores and results.

As a general rule, our schedules will include all live broadcasts on TV, but not tape-delayed broadcasts on cable channels. We’ll let you know what’s on NBC daytime and prime time shows whether they’re live or not.

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Noon: Opening Ceremony preview show

1:30 p.m.: Opening Ceremony

7:30 p.m.: Opening Ceremony prime time replay

1 p.m.: Opening Ceremony preview show

1:30 p.m.: Opening Ceremony