What The Postponed Summer Olympics May Mean For Days of our Lives

The 2020 Summer Olympics, originally set for July 24 through August 9, have been rescheduled to next year due to coronavirus concerns. What does that mean for Days of our Lives fans?

Summer Olympics Get Postponed

DAYS was set to be preempted for the entire two weeks of the Olympics. As the show has done in the past, a big cliffhanger was set to air on the last day of shows before the 14-day break. In 2012, when DAYS took an Olympic break, gas leaks caused a big explosion that took the life of Madison (Sarah Brown) and, presumably, Jack (Matthew Ashford). Spoiler alert — he got better.

While NBC hasn’t announced anything officially, presumably, regular programming will continue. That means whatever big event the show may have had planned to air as a cliffhanger will now potentially be resolved fairly quickly.

The games, set to take place in Tokyo, won’t proceed as planned. The IOC’s (International Olympic Committee) Dick Pound told USA TODAY sports. The news outlet reports that there’s really no way to be sure of when the situation will change. Ideally, organizers hope to have the games rescheduled as soon as possible — perhaps in 2021.

At press time, there’s been no official word on whether or not DAYS episodes will air continuously now that the Olympics are on hold. They were already having to deal with getting three episodes possibly back when the French Open was postponed for coronavirus concerns as well.

Last fall, DAYS launched an innovative storyline in which the show time-jumped a year. Months later, the show spent a week explaining key moments that occurred during a fateful week that changed relationships forever. Those dynamics continue to play out today.

DAYS has won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series four times –1978, 2013, 2015 (tying with The Young and the Restless), and 2018. DAYS is one of four remaining daily soap operas and NBC’s sole soap. The sudser is executive produced by Ken Corday and co-executive produced by Albert Alarr and Greg Meng. Ron Carlivati is the show’s head writer. Days of our Lives (DOOL) airs weekdays on NBC. Check your local listings for airtimes.