Impressive figures: Lugers beat FC Bayern | OneFootball

The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and the Italian Alps are generating an enormous TV response in Germany – and are even overshadowing FC Bayern

ARD is drawing an extremely positive conclusion at the halfway point of the Games and can point to impressive ratings

This was particularly evident last Wednesday: the bronze medal won by lugers Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt attracted up to 6.77 million viewers, meaning that the Olympic broadcast even outperformed the DFB Cup quarter-final between FC Bayern and RB Leipzig, which took place at the same time. Philipp Raimund’s gold medal jump from the normal hill also broke the six million viewer mark

The biathlon competitions in particular are once again developing into real ratings guarantors. The men’s sprint on Friday achieved a market share of 41.8 percent, while the women’s sprint on Saturday achieved 41.0 percent. „In terms of market share, the broadcasts from Milan and Cortina are at a similarly high level as those from Beijing four years ago,“ ARD announced

When asked by SID, the lead broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk, which is responsible for the ARD Olympic program together with MDR, was also highly satisfied: „We are very pleased with the really great audience response so far for our offerings for the 2026 Winter Olympics on all channels.“

Strong interim results for the 2026 Olympics

The Games are not only going strong on linear television, but also digitally. „The interim results for 2026 are very impressive so far,“ it continues. „A good 35 million livestream views in the ARD Mediathek and on sportschau.de were measured in the first week of the Olympics, plus over 10 million video views of summaries, analyses, award ceremonies and athletes‘ voices.“

photo: IMAGO

Despite the logistical challenges posed by the widely separated competition venues, the broadcaster considers itself to be well positioned. „The sometimes long distances between the individual venues in northern Italy were a certain challenge. However, thanks to our sophisticated remote concept with lean production technology on site and a joint Olympic headquarters at ZDF in Mainz, where all the threads come together, we have solved this challenge well.“

For FC Bayern, this means that even a knockout match in the DFB Cup cannot currently match the appeal of the Olympics. The Winter Games are currently dominating the ratings.