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I just spent 5 hours watching Winter Olympics Gold Zone on Peacock, and it's so close to being perfect
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- I just spent 5 hours watching Winter Olympics Gold Zone on Peacock, and it's so close to being perfect
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Credit: NBCUniversal
The 2026 Winter Olympics are in full swing, and the best way to watch every minute of the action is on Peacock . Specifically, the Gold Zone on Peacock, which is a whip-around coverage show exclusive to the streaming service , akin to NFL RedZone . In fact, Peacock even steals Scott Hanson from RedZone to host large chunks of the Gold Zone
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So with the Super Bowl now in the rearview mirror, I spent the entire day on Monday watching hours of Gold Zone to see what the fuss is all about. Gold Zone actually debuted at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, but I didn't get a chance to experience it. The Olympics honestly aren't my favorite sporting event, so I was curious if the Gold Zone's near-constant feed of Winter Olympics action would get me hooked.
Turns out, it absolutely did. Gold Zone is awesome , and it's probably the only way I'm watching the Olympics until we get down to handing out medals in the final major events. That said, it's not perfect. There's a major flaw, and a couple of minor ones, that prevented it from being truly the ultimate Olympics streaming experience. Here's what I loved (and hated) after watching the Winter Olympics Gold Zone on Peacock for five hours straight.
What I loved about Gold Zone
OK, so let's cover the good stuff first. Gold Zone allows you to watch up to four events at once on a single screen. But unlike a standard Multiview, this experience is curated; it's a studio show with hosts, cutting back and forth between events just at the right moment so you don't miss any of the drama or elation.
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It's an easy viewing experience, too. When it's in a multiview, a gold border highlights the event that the studio hosts are commentating on. When they choose to hone in on an event, that broadcast takes over, and you get the audio feed from that specific broadcast, including the commentary from that event's dedicated announcers.
In a unique twist, though, sometimes they give you audio from multiple events. That could be disastrous, but when I was watching Gold Zone, it weirdly worked. It was a cool experience to get the elated cheers of curling over the audio of ice dancers skating to Ricky Martin over the loudspeakers at their rink.
The best Gold Zone gets, though, is when Scott Hanson takes over. All due respect to Peacock's own studio hosts, who are genuinely good, Hanson is the best of the best at whip-around coverage. You literally feel yourself perking up once he takes over, and it makes the action that much more exciting.
How Peacock could improve Gold Zone
Let's start with some nitpicks. While I like that Peacock offers a call-to-action button to take you from Gold Zone to specific broadcasts, it only offers that at specific times. I'd love to be able to select the broadcasts when they're in the four-box, like I would select broadcasts from a Multiview. My guess is the technology simply isn't there yet, but it's something I would like to see in the future.
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Also, the events available to Gold Zone really make a difference. When high-intensity curling semifinals are paired against speed skating medal rounds, it's electric. When so little is going on that the Gold Zone can't cut away from a women's hockey game, suddenly you'll find yourself losing interest fast. Not that women's hockey is inherently boring, but with NFL RedZone, you're only getting fed the most important plays. Plays that offer a chance at scoring points. Gold Zone can't just stick to that, though. Sometimes it needs to show you five minutes of Germany vs. France where nothing really happens.
Now, onto my main gripe: Why are there commercials? Specifically, why are we cutting away to commercials? When NFL RedZone added commercials, it had the decency to still show you football at the same time. The fact that a whip-around show that I'm paying a $10.99 a month subscription fee to access is making me watch a Wegovy ad instead of more curling is patently absurd. Show me ads if you must, but at least give me them picture-in-picture.
Verdict: Gold Zone is so close to being perfect, but I'm still watching it regardless
Despite its flaws, Gold Zone is the only way I'm watching I'm the Olympics from here on out. Give me the constant action over a single broadcast any day. I realize that I'm perfectly content to watch a three-hour foreign film with no distractions, but when it comes to live sports, give me as many big moments as you can possibly fit onto my screen. Gold Zone manages to do that, and does it well. So it officially has my stamp of approval.
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