We are welcoming 2026 with a bang. NBCUniversal has announced an “officially sold out” batch of ad inventory for the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, a full month before the opening ceremony on February 6. The company calls the demand “unprecedented,” saying it has set a new Winter Olympics ad sales record, and claims more advertisers are investing than ever before, including “more than 100” brands that are supposedly first-timers to the Olympics. However, at Faultline we plan to scrutinize these claims. The first thing to note is that “sold out” is not an industry metric. It’s a statement about NBCU’s own inventory allocation and how aggressively it sets ad loads, sponsorship packages, and makegoods across NBC, Telemundo, and Peacock. The…