NBC Sports will stream all 32 Olympic sports -- from judo to trampoline, archery to volleyball -- as they happen. If anything was made for digital viewing, it's the Olympics. After all, the internet is the one medium built to celebrate and elevate any niche.

Sure, some storylines and athletic feats can transcend a given sport and make for great TV. But overall, TV broadcasts cannot bring viewers the same depth and breadth of the Olympic experience that digital can.

"It will be the biggest digital event that this country has ever seen," said Rick Cordella, VP-general manager of NBC Sports and Olympics Digital.

With the move, NBC Sports head Mark Lazarus is abandoning former chief Dick Ebersol's position that the network would never show the most popular Olympic events live online. The thinking was that it would cannibalize prime-time, tape-delayed viewing -- and the big-money advertising deals tied to it.

How much traffic the network's Olympics site will garner is a question that NBC execs don't pretend to have a precise answer for. Networks and technologies that were just gaining users (Twitter) or that didn't exist (iPad) for the last summer games will most likely play a big role. There are also factors outside NBC Sports' control. How will Team USA fare? How many finals will the swimmer Michael Phelps make?

"We'll find out by Day 3 what our cruising altitude is going to be," Mr. Cordella said. "We're making a guess at it," he added. "We just don't know."