Roku has launched a special Olympics hub to provide easy access to streams of the 2020 Olympics from Tokyo, along with other special features. But most live viewing still requires a subscription to a participating pay TV provider.
As the "Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games" designation implies, the Tokyo Olympics were postponed until this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Competition begins on Wednesday, July 21, and the Opening Ceremony is on Friday, July 23. The Closing Ceremony will be held Sunday, August 8. During this time, NBCU will stream 5,500 hours of Olympics coverage.
How to stream the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games on Roku
The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games will be broadcast and streamed across several NBCUniversal (NBCU) networks, including NBC, Peacock, NBCSN, USA Network, CNBC, Olympic Channel, Golf Channel, Telemundo, and NBC Universo, where you will find live coverage, highlights, and commentary. Here is where to find all the Olympics coverage on your Roku device or Roku TV:
- Live TV streaming services - You will find the various NBCU networks available on many of the live TV streaming services, although availability differs by provider and subscription level. Also, the availability of the primary NBC broadcast is dependent on not only the service provider, but also your geographic location. However, subscribing to certain pay TV services will provide you with access to simulcasts from NBCU networks through the NBC Sports app; see the next bullet for more information.
- NBC Sports app - For the most complete Olympics 2020 coverage, you will need to subscribe to a participating TV provider that also allows you to authenticate the NBC Sports app, where you will find live streams of Olympics competition along with replays and highlights. The NBC Sports app also lets you filter by sport and provides a schedule of upcoming events. The following pay TV services that are available on Roku allow you full access to the NBC Sports app: AT&T TV (no contract), fuboTV (free trial, no contract), Sling TV (reduced pricing for first month, no contact), and Hulu with Live TV
. Many other pay TV services not available on Roku, including local and regional cable companies, also allow authentication of the NBC Sports app; visit nbcsports.com/activate for a full list.
- Peacock app on Roku - If you don't need to watch full coverage, Peacock provides free access to the Tokyo NOW Channel, which provides the latest updates and highlights 24/7. Peacock Premium subscribers also get access to 2020 U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball games and select replays that include the Opening Ceremony.
Roku's Olympics hub special features
Roku added a "2020 Tokyo Olympics Zone designed to make it "easier to access NBCU's 5,500 hours of streaming coverage of the Summer Games directly from the Roku home screen." A link to this Olympics hub has been added to the left-side menu on Roku home screens. (If your Roku has not been updated with the new menu option, you can find it with the Roku search function.) Roku has promised a medal tracker, but it wasn't available at the time this article was published. What you will find are links that will take you to Olympics events and coverage on other Roku apps like the NBS Sports app (discussed above) and Peacock. Other than 15 athlete profiles, all content in the Olympics Zone requires that you subscribe to a participating pay TV provider or log in to Peacock with a free account.
Our recommendation - sign up for a free trial with AT&T TV or fuboTV and then authenticate the NBC Sports app where you'll find all the Olympics coverage you desire.
This article was originally published on July 22, 2021. It has been updated to indicate that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics link is now available in the Roku home screen menu; this link was unavailable when the article was originally published.
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