Team USA and its Men’s basketball squad will never live up to the lofty heights of the Dream Team of the 1990s and some fans realize the comparisons are both unfair and necessary. That said, the current Team USA team defeated Team France in a nail-biting gold medal game that was the most-watched contest of its sort since the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. 

Team USA, which had a tough game against Team Serbia led by Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic, took on host nation Team France’s Men’s basketball team with young standout, San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama, along with other fellow NBA players Nicolas Batum, Evan Fournier, Rudy Gobert, and Bilal Coulibaly.

On Saturday (August 29), LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Kevin Durant were the unofficial “Big Three” for Team USA with contributions from Anthony Edwards, Derrick White, Anthony Davis, Joel Embiid, Devin Booker, and Jrue Holiday. Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton saw limited playing time throughout the entire Olympics. Tatum, who just won the NBA championship this year with the Boston Celtics, did get some playing time in the gold game.

Deadline reports that viewership numbers were released and the event was the most-watched gold medal basketball game since the 1996 Summer Games with 22.7 million viewers reported during the late afternoon contest kicked off stateside.

Peacock, NBC’s streaming service, the Men’s gold medal game also earned the highest viewing numbers across NBCUniversal’s digital platforms with a reported 2.7 viewers per minute. This good fortune spread over into other sports with the U.S. Women’s National Team and their 1-0 triumph over Team Germany becoming the most-watched gold medal game for that sport since 2004.

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Photo: Getty

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