In just a few hours, the 2026 Winter Olympics will begin in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. NBC and its sister platforms will broadcast and stream the Games, which are always one of the most-watched events of any year in which they are held.
For example, the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris saw one of the largest audiences ever. Around five billion people followed the Olympics, with many viewers tuning in on streaming platforms, primarily Peacock. The streaming audience for the Paris Olympics was up 40 percent from the Tokyo and Beijing Games combined.
Digital viewership has expanded the audience, opened up avenues for more coverage, and given viewers a closer and more personal experience with the events, athletes, and host cities. Viewers around the world feel more connected to the Games than ever, which gives people at home a vested interest in the outcomes of the events.
In short, television coverage and streaming are vital to the success of the Olympics and to the bottom line of host network NBC. In fact, without the Olympics, Peacock, NBC’s streaming service might not even exist.
And you might be surprised to find out that Douglas and Coffee County have a strong connection to Peacock and its Olympic coverage. Douglas native Todd Rimes, a 1983 graduate of Coffee High School and a 1985 graduate of then-South Georgia College, was one of the lead developers for a Peacock feature built for the 2024 Summer Olympics. The work that he and his team did won him a 2024-2025 Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Experience.
Todd graduated a year early from Coffee High School. “I was supposed to graduate in 1984 but I skipped my senior year. I officially graduated in 1983. I was able to leave high school early because I had a full scholarship to South Georgia College,” he says. From there, Todd went to Valdosta State University (economics and finance) and then to Georgia Tech (information technology and finance), where he earned a Master’s degree.
When he graduated from Georgia Tech, Todd moved to California and stayed there for 30 years. During COVID, he took a job in New York City but the offices there were closed. So he moved to Douglas to live with family. He had been here about four months when a friend called and told Todd there was a job opening with NBC. He asked if Todd knew anyone who might want the position. “It was an engineering manager job with the advertising technology group at Peacock. I said, ‘Yeah, I do. I want the job.’ I got it and I still have it four years later,” he says.
The 2024 Olympics were pivotal for Peacock and NBC. In 2020, Peacock had done a little with the Tokyo games but not much. The platform was brand new and everyone was feeling their way around. “In 2024, they really wanted to make a big deal about having the Olympics on Peacock. It was very important that we do a good job. The product people designed the most incredible features that nobody had ever seen before or had even existed before. It was being shopped around for a development team because they couldn’t find anybody who had the bandwidth. I volunteered my team for but we didn’t really have the bandwidth, either. So I ended up doing it myself, which is why I was qualified to win the Emmy,” says Todd.
So what exactly is “it”? The feature Todd’s team worked on is called Live Actions. It allows several new user interactions with live streaming events. While watching one event, users can add clips, events and other assets to their watchlist based upon topics in a talk show, move to other live events during a whiparound show, such as a post-game report, to continue watching coverage that is about to change and get other contextual information/media from highlights.
Todd did his work from the NBC Sports offices in Connecticut. “No, I didn’t get to go to Paris. I wish,” he laughs. “I’m already lobbying my boss to go to Los Angeles.”
About the Emmy – a year or so ago, Todd’s boss told him that he could nominate one person from his team for the Emmy. Todd told him to nominate the architect because of his work in helping figure out the solutions to the project. Then his boss asked him who did the actual coding. That was Todd and his boss said, “Then I’m going to nominate you.” Todd thought it was unlikely that he would win. “Then we did – it was very exciting.”
Viewers who tune into this month’s winter Games will see more of Todd’s work. He and his team worked on new more interactive features for the Milan Olympics. “It’s going to be a whole new custom experience for watching the Olympics on your phone. It’s going to be a really, really cool interactive and mobile vertical oriented experience,” says Todd.
The work that Todd and his team have done has ramifications beyond the world of sports. As the way people consume media changes, so does the way advertisers pitch their products and services. Todd’s work allows Peacock to personalize ads for the individual viewer. “On my personal Peacock subscription, I pay more to not see ads. But if I want to pay less and I don’t mind the ads, at least I want to see ads that mean something to me. I don’t want to see a bunch of ads that mean nothing. If a commercial is going to come on, it’s better if that commercial means something to me than not,” he says.
If you choose to stream the Olympics on Peacock this month, just know that many of the ground-breaking features you will utilize have a direct connection to Douglas and Coffee County. And there’s an Emmy Award here to prove it.
“It was pretty amazing when it arrived. I was blown away. I was amazed at how big it is, how heavy and beautiful it is. It was so unexpected. No one takes a job like I have and thinks they’re ever going to win an Emmy Award. But it happened,” says Todd.
