Keeping up with the Olympics this summer promises to be an effort of, well, Olympian proportions.

That’s because NBC, which is broadcasting the summer sporting event for the sixth consecutive time is threatening to unleash 3,600 hours of coverage on viewers.

"It’s more live coverage from a single Olympics than the total of all previous Summer Olympics combined," Dick Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Universal Sports & Olympics, said in a press release issued by the company. "The enormity of what we’re doing just blows me away."

Self-congratulation aside, the coverage—which will be broadcast across eight NBCU platforms, including the NBC network itself, plus cable properties from MSNBC to Telemundo, and on the Web at NBCOlympics.com—represents a bid by chief executive Jeff Zucker to drum up interest after disappointing ratings during several previous summer Olympic games.

In 2000, the network coughed up $705 million—not including production costs—to broadcast the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. The overall ratings for those games, for which viewership totaled about 200 million, were the lowest for any Olympics ever broadcast by NBC, for a variety of reasons. Interest is lower for Olympics outside of the U.S., the Games took place in late September, when school and work obligations competed with viewing, and the time difference meant a lag during which Americans could get the results of Olympic competitions online or from the newspaper.

In 2004, the story was slightly sunnier. After spending $793 million to broadcast the Summer Games from Athens, Greece, NBC garnered household ratings for the event that were 245 percent higher than those from the previous month. That year also marked the first enormous increase in coverage—the company aired a then-record 1,210 hours, thanks to the recent acquisition of three cable networks: USA, Bravo, and Telemundo.

This year, the broadcast rights for the Olympics cost a record $894 million, not counting a reported $125 million extra for production expenses. And in exchange for that huge outlay of capital, NBC has found itself embroiled in an international hubbub about China’s human rights record, as well as protests against and attacks on Olympic sponsors.

To make it all worthwhile, the network is no doubt banking on a huge payoff in the form of ratings numbers, and is luring viewers with promises of unparalleled choice and live coverage. In addition to 225 hours of coverage on NBC itself, viewers this year will be able to tune in live to the heretofore ignored triumphs of Olympic canoeing, archery, and judo competitions via NBCOlympics.com.

Seventy-five percent of the broadcasts across every NBC platform will be live. Coverage from every Olympic sport will be included, and barn-burner sports like gymnastics and swimming will receive especially comprehensive coverage.

Also in NBC’s favor: "The time difference works well this year," says Brad Adgate, senior vice president at media-planning and -buying agency Horizon Media. "If an event starts in the morning in China, that’s prime time on the East Coast" of the U.S.

Adgate forecasts an audience of "upwards of 200 million" for the Games this summer, but points to other, intangible benefits of broadcasting the Games, such as promoting its fall lineup.

And besides, NBC doesn’t have a ton of competition in the form of quality programming from the other networks, most of which are sticking with a tried-and-true slate of reality shows this summer.

Still, digesting 3,600 hours of Olympic coverage? Now that’s gold-medal worthy.