NEW YORK — The Olympic Channel debuted online this past August, one day after the Closing Ceremony of the Rio Games, as a digital-only platform aimed at providing year-round coverage of Olympic sports while digging into the International Olympic Committee’s deep archive of past events.

On Saturday, the channel will make its television debut. The network, also known as The Olympic Channel, will appear in 35 million homes nationwide with plans of passing 40 million households by the end of the year. As part of NBC’s overall coverage, the channel will team with the existing NBC Sports Network to provide round-the-clock exposure to both Olympic sports and the athletes involved, explained NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel.

“This Saturday is one of the most monumental evolutions that we’ll have,” said Olympics Channel general manager Mark Parkman. “In today’s age of cord-cutting and linear channels going away, I think this speaks very highly to NBC’s commitment.”

As with its digital partner, the channel will partner original content — including coverage of live events and original programming — and the vast Olympic archive, “with a specific focus of engaging a younger audience outside the Olympic Games,” Zenkel said.

“The priority is live sports,” added Jim Bell, the president of NBC Olympics Production and Programming.

The launch marks the next phase of the long-term partnership between NBC, the IOC and the United States Olympic Committee, which re-signed a deal in 2014 that will run through 2032.

“We’ve always had the championship season for Team USA with the Games,” said USOC chief marketing officer Lisa Baird. “We’ve never had the regular season. To me, the linear channel is the last piece we’ve been building to really show Americans what it takes to be an Olympic athlete.”

Part of that “common vision,” as Zenkel said, is to create a channel that places its spotlight on the sports events themselves and the many athletes involved, while also shying away from the debate-heavy programming prevalent among most national sports networks.

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“This isn’t embrace debate. This is embrace your partner, this embrace the athletes and this is embrace sports – embracing even outside of that magical two-week window every four years,” Bell said.

“That type of programming often tends to bring out and focus on some of the worst parts of human nature. This is about some of the best parts and the best stories, the more uplifting stories, that people do seem to love.”

The Olympic Channel has already drawn attention for one of its upcoming programs. Beginning on Aug. 28 and running through Sept. 4, the channel will replay in primetime all eight original broadcasts of the 1992 Dream Team.

But the biggest test for this network will be finding an audience during non-Olympic periods for Olympic sports, which typically go ignored by the majority of American viewers. In addition, the channel will launch on the heels of a disappointing Rio Games for NBC: The Games drew 15% fewer viewers than the 2012 London Games, marking the first time since 2000 that the total audience declined from the previous Olympics.

Still, with its large initial base of potential viewers and the ability to “help frame stories for Team USA,” Baird said, the Olympic Channel will have the potential to own a slice of the market currently unoccupied — a channel devoted only to Olympic sports, and one backed by NBC and its sponsors, no less.

The launch provides “an additional channel that gives us a lot more shelf space to provide both more coverage of events we have always covered,” said Zenkel, “as well as more events that we haven’t necessarily had the means to cover.”

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