FIS digital at Milano Cortina 2026: Olympic attention turned into community growth

The Olympics create a rare kind of attention: global, emotional, and fast-moving. Most organizations can ride that wave. Very few can steer it - turning peak moments into daily habits, new audiences, and measurable community growth.

From February 6 - 22, 2026 FIS did exactly that by running a disciplined, social-first publishing system under one umbrella brand: I LOVE SNOW - Passion Beyond Limits - built for speed, athlete-led storytelling, and platform-native formats across multiple disciplines.

More than 640m reach, 15m engagements, and +216k followers across FIS social

Across FIS Olympic discipline channels (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, X, WhatsApp), the Games window delivered:

• 5,400 posts published

• 643.6 million total reach

• 15.1 million engagements

• 2.55% engagement rate

• 216,900 new followers gained in 16 days

The follower gains underline the power of FIS as a connected discipline network. Major properties scaled fast, while smaller channels also built meaningful momentum - bringing new audiences into snow sports as a whole, not just a single event.

• Alpine Skiing: +74,689 followers (1,468,203 → 1,542,892)

• FIS Freestyle channels: +54,818 followers (278,054 → 332,872)

• Snowboard Racing: +6,384 followers (59,789 → 66,173)

• Nordic Combined: +3,171 followers (103,372 → 106,543)

• Park & Pipe IG and TT: +25,568 followers (183,568 --> 209,170)

Based on the platform breakdown, Instagram drove the majority of reach (357.8 million = ~55.6%), followed by Facebook (145.4 million = ~22.6%) and TikTok (120.5 million = ~18.7%). FIS generated 120.5 million reach from just 249 TikTok posts during the Olympic window - that’s ~483.9K reach per post, making TikTok by far the most efficient distribution channel per unit of content. What is more, the strongest-performing vertical videos reached truly global scale, with FIS Freestyle’s top two TikTok posts - Moguls previews - achieving 33.3 and 30.5m views respectively.

Global discovery: winter sports audiences are bigger than “winter countries”

One of the strongest signals of success was the geography of reached audiences. The Olympics did not only deepen traditional markets; it brought demand in non-traditional ones to the surface - especially through discovery on TikTok and Instagram.

Alpine Skiing: Brazil as a breakout reach market on Instagram:

• Brazil ranked #2 for FIS Alpine Instagram with a reach of 10.5%, ahead of the US (8.3%) and Switzerland (8.1%) and behind Italy (21.7%)

• 240K followers on TikTok, of which 40% are female, 60.3% are 34 years or younger (29.7% 24 years or younger), 10.5% from USA, 8.5% from Italy and 8.3% from Austria

Freestyle (Moguls, Aerials): Global mass appeal to younger audiences   

• 88.7M reached on TikTok during the last 30 days, from which 78.8% are 34 years or younger and from USA (8.4%), Canada (7.3%), Indonesia (4.7%), Italy (4.4%), Thailand (3.8%), Vietnam (3.7%), France (2.9%) and Kazakhstan (2.4%)

• 82.5K followers on TikTok, of which 35% are female, 60.6% are 34 years or younger, 16.9% from USA, 6% from France and 5% from United Kingdom

Nordic Combined: Diversified reach and followers on TikTok    

• 41.2K followers on TikTok, of which 39% are female, 35.6% 34 years or younger, 25.7% from USA, 8.6% from Italy and 7.7% from France

• Biggest views during the last 30 days: 40.9% from Vietnam, 25.2% from Finland and 9.3% from USA

Snowboard Racing (Snowboard Alpine, Snowboard Cross): Strong TikTok traction in Central Asia + MENA

• 45.5K followers on TikTok, of which 38% are female, 46.8% 34 years or younger, 24.7% from USA, 10.8% from Italy and 7.6% from France

• 4.3M views on TikTok during the last 30 days, of which 45% are female, 62.2% 34 years or younger, 28.7% from Kazakhstan, 20.3% from Egypt 18.7% from Sweden, 17.3% from Saudi Arabia and 9.1% from United Arab Emirates

Park and Pipe: Strong female community due to global reach and female stardom

• 115K followers in TikTok, of which 55% are female, 66% are 34 years or younger, 19.5% are from USA, 5.8% from Germany and 5% from France

One passion umbrella, many disciplines: I LOVE SNOW as a connected ecosystem

FIS succeeded digitally during the Olympics because it did not treat each sport as a separate island. Under one clear umbrella - I LOVE SNOW - Passion Beyond Limits -the content looked and felt connected across disciplines, so fans who arrived for one highlight could more easily discover more and stay within the wider snow-sports world.

That umbrella was supported by a repeatable approach:

• Fast, shareable content when moments happened (within rights and access limits)

• Short explainers that helped casual viewers understand what they were seeing

• Athlete-led storytelling that shifted attention from results to people

• Daily conversation formats that sustained attention between competitions

The goal was not only to keep pace with the Games, but to add diverse voices, context and personality - giving fans a reason to return beyond a single medal moment. On fis-ski.com/ilovesnow, FIS brought the Olympics to life through an athlete-led storytelling hub - where audiences could follow the people behind the performances, not only the results.

The microsite packaged the Games around recurring narrative formats, including the daily show I LOVE SNOW Real Talk, with moderators including US Paralympic Cross Country athlete Danielle Aravich, Canadian ski jumper Alexandria Loutitt and US Nordic Combined athlete Annika Malacinski, the personal POV series "Through My Eyes“ and "A Special Letter“, complemented by podcasts that add longer-form context and conversation - so audiences can dip in for quick moments or stay for deeper stories.

The daily I LOVE SNOW Real Talk show added a consistent rhythm to Olympic storytelling - creating “always-on” narratives that could be repackaged into short social clips - giving FIS a steady stream of shareable athlete reactions, behind-the-scenes moments, and explainers that kept the conversation moving between competitions.

During the Olympics, FIS operated under strict media-rights and venue-access restrictions, with no direct video rights, so amplified video coverage through Instagram collaboration posts with rights-holders such as NBC and TNT Sports. Looking ahead to the World Cup season, FIS will build on this momentum by empowering athletes and federations with a clear framework to access and share broadcast footage, enable filming, and support monetization under the FIS Content Exchange platform policies.

Owned platforms deepened the relationship

The strongest Olympic strategies do not end on social. They convert attention into sustained engagement across owned platforms - where fans can return for schedules, results, highlights, and deeper stories. Indeed, fis-ski.com saw strong momentum on its owned digital platforms, with 28.5 million page views and a total of 1.8 million users, from which 1 million were new users, during the Olympic Games. The leading countries in terms of users were Poland, Slovenia, USA, Italy and Germany.

The FIS App, with 202K engaged unique users during the Winter Olympic Games, deepened that relationship, with average engagement time per user rising by +24.9% to 1 hour 19 minutes, showing fans were not just visiting - they were staying.