That’s the estimate from eMarketer: it says that the online video advertising on NBCOlympics.com will reach a relatively small $5.75 million,  only 1.1 percent of this year’s online video ad spending projection of $505 million in the US. No methodology of how they arrived at that figure, so take it for what it is worth..I have asked them about how they arrived at this figure..more when I get more.

SEE ALSO: NBCOlympics.com: We Beat Yahoo In First Week (When You Use Our Numbers); 56 Million Videos Streamed

They do give some reasons of why it could be this low: Even with the Olympics’ popularity, much of the record traffic on NBCOlympics.com was not video viewers. The fact that users were forced to download Microsoft Silverlight, as oppose to using Flash, may have hampered its chances to get an even bigger audience. Maybe NBC will chime in now…

For reference, last week, NBCU claimed $10 million in total Olympic ad sales. Earlier, Lehman Brothers analyst Doug Anmuth forecast that internet ads will attract only $70 million, out of a global $1.5 billion ad spend across all media content related to the Beijing Games.

Update: here’s how eMarketer came at the figure: NBC’s reported video streams the first seven days (25.6 million), averaged out over whole 17 days of Olympics (with increase in daily average for more video viewers over time), estimated 1.5 ads per stream, estimated $50 CPM. Seems reasonable and simple enough, but also consider that the ad packages on the site are likely to be both video and banners, so tough to break out.