NBC Olympic coverage delays and Danica Patrick

The NBC Olympic coverage issues continue.  Here's a piece from Sports Illustrated that chronicles NBC's defense from the vitriol of not broadcasting events live: bottom line their strategy is working.  Ratings for the primetime coverage are up 27% over the Turin Games.  Check and mate.  Should be interesting to see if the strategy will carry over to the 2014 Games in Sochi.  In case you were wondering, Sochi is 8 hours ahead of EST.

Furthermore, even though I noted the complaints about pushing the USA-Canada hockey game to cable yesterday, today's quarterfinal matchup for the USA (against the Swiss) will be televised live on NBC at 3pm Eastern.  Sounds great.  Except, there's a catch: if you live on the West Coast, the game will also be televised at 3pm Pacific Standard Time - three hours after the game will have already taken place.  So, if you live in Oregon, don't check ESPN or Twitter or basically any other website that could spoil the three hours you have to wait to watch the tape-delayed game on your local NBC affiliate.

The Swiss team played the US tough in the preliminary rounds, losing 3-1.  

With NHL goaltender Jonas Hiller, the Swiss could test the Americans again.

The good news?  If you do happen to reside on the West Coast, you'll be treated to three hours worth of Ellen DeGeneres, Days of Our Lives, and the Martha Stewart Show.  And oh, the gold medal game on Sunday, for you West Coasters, that will be tape delayed too.

Stuck in Oregon watching Martha?  At least you weren't one of these unfortunate 

Canadian fans who witnessed the US victory first-hand on Sunday.

In other news, two weeks worth of Danica Patrick in the NASCAR Nationwide series has brought record ratings to the season's first two races.  Reports from her first race at Daytona revealed that the "Drive 4 COPD 300" was the most watched Nationwide race on cable ever - even though Patrick didn't finish the race.  Ratings have yet to be posted from the race last weekend at Fontana, where Patrick finished 31st.

A slideshow of coverage for Danica Patrick on ESPN the past two weeks.
Two speeding tickets on pit lane in Saturday's race pushed Patrick to the back of the pack.

With her third race in the NASCAR series coming up this weekend - after which she'll take a 4 month break to race in IndyCar - some of the media are suggesting that, with poor results in the first two races, the shimmer on this story is fading quickly.  Others have noted that it doesn't matter where Patrick finishes the race, just that she finishes it.  And Tony Stewart, well, he's just tired of answering the same questions every week:

"It's just that you guys pestering us about her gets to be too much.  After a while, you wonder how much you can talk about the same topic and we haven't even gotten her to her first regular (NASCAR Sprint Cup Series) and we're still talking about the same stuff.  Our opinion about her hasn't changed."

When the media finally leaves her alone, Stewart added, "she'll be fine."  No word from Stewart on when, or if, that could actually happen.