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.

NBC Olympic Broadcasting Fail?

Last week, I noted some objections to the handling of Olympic broadcasting duties by NBC, the country's fourth-placed national broadcaster.

Not mentioned in that critique was the placement of Sunday night's eventual "tremendously tremendous" hockey game between the USA and their rivals and hosts, Canada, on cable outlet MSNBC.  What did the mother network show instead?  The original dance portion of the ice dancing competition.

To its' credit, the ice dancing compulsories did 

produce some interesting costume choices.

The action at Pacific Coliseum could not match the electric atmosphere in Canada Hockey Place, where over 19,000 watched the US take down Canada by a score of 5-3.  The win was the first Olympic Games victory for the US over their northern neighbors in 50 years (highlights).  The historic quality of the event was matched by the incredible intensity of the game, the pressure on the Canadians to defend home ice, and the prevalence of skill among the two rosters full of top-level NHL talent.

Canadian fans were looking forward to a celebration.

Instead, as the Americans celebrated the goal that sealed the game,  

Canada went catatonic.

ESPN hockey analyst Barry Melrose, after the game, "I hope no one has to call Canada for anything tomorrow.  There ain't gonna be anyone working."

The result of the dramatic victory, which was backstopped by a 42-save effort from goaltender Ryan Miller, put the US team at the top of the tournament's preliminary round.  Not only will the US get an extra day's rest - and a bye to the quarterfinals - they will avoid a potential meeting with tournament favorites Sweden or Russia.

And yet, despite its placement on cable - and not national network - broadcasting, the game was the premier event of the Olympics' first week.  Certainly, NBC and other members of the media took notice:

Sunday night's New York Times home page.

On NBC's Olympic home page.

ESPN.  When's the last time hockey made the front page on the WWL?

The political consequences of a US win?  

Good luck importing Canadian bacon.  Or maple syrup.

"US Canada hockey" was the top Google US search term on Sunday night.

This all returns us back to the title of the blog post: why was the game on cable?  The answer points to Sut Jhally's concept of the sports/media complex, where (among other things) sport is only as valuable for a network like NBC for its ability to deliver audiences to advertisers.  This "complex" is fairly well-understood at this point, but was most recently made patently obvious by this month's Super Bowl (the highest-watched ever) and a Wall Street Journal report the previous week that showed an NFL broadcast contains just 11 minutes of action.

So, where does that leave the Olympics? Just today, the Wall Street Journal provided a follow-up to the analysis of football broadcasts and found the following comprised the 3.5 hours of NBC's Olympic programming last Friday evening:

Unfortunately for ice hockey, its games do not fit this model, especially in the Olympics when there are no TV timeouts - and no time for commercials - during the game.  If you've been watching, you've noticed that when the whistle blows in an Olympic hockey game, there is no more than 15-20 seconds until play resumes (oftentimes after showing a brief commercial, MSNBC returns to game action that has already started).  Therefore, it was clear that ice hockey games would not provide enough time for commercials and Bob Costas, apparently, to warrant NBC placing even such a "tremendously tremendous" sporting event on its national network (side note: NBC's opening segment on Monday night's Olympic coverage featured a live shot of Bob Costas landing in a seaplane.  With Al Michaels narrating.  Scintillating).

NBC president Jeff Zucker: Re-thinking the decision to put hockey on cable,

or simply puzzled by the ice dancing scoring system?

The whole affair is especially unfortunate considering that NBC currently has a broadcasting rights contract with the NHL and the Olympic Games would be a great way to market NHL talent.  Ultimately, NBC rationalized their decision to put the hockey game on cable because ice dancing on the major network would have the ability to attract the coveted female viewer demographic.  Relatedly, I find it equally reasonable that the network assumed they could not get the same amount of advertising revenue from hockey as compared to ice dancing.

After the fact, the only question that remains is should the game have been on cable?  We don't have the national numbers for NBC just yet, but MSNBC reported today that the hockey game delivered its second highest number of average viewers ever.  With an 8.2 million average viewership, the game provided an audience number that was higher than all but John McCain's concession speech during MSNBC's coverage of Election Night 2008.  Wow.

The team celebrates a hard-earned win.  Is there a win in the national ratings as well?

Furthermore, reports from the local TV market in Buffalo, NY - albeit a devoted hockey town - showed that ratings for the game outdrew the ice dancing ratings.  This happening is so rare - MSNBC beating NBC in evening ratings - that the Buffalo News mused, "Do you believe in miracles?"

I'll update the national ratings as they come in.

UPDATE: Sunday night, NBC averaged an national audience of 23.3 million, down 3 million from the ten day average of 26 million per night, but still good enough to dominate the other networks' offerings.

Commercialism and the Vancouver Olympic Games

In the build-up to the Winter Olympics, the IOC is flexing its regulatory muscles.

The latest debacle centers on the Australian Olympic delegation flying this flag of a boxing kangaroo at their hotel, a practice they have embraced at every Olympic Games since Sydney in 2000.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a walla...bee?

Apparently, it is beyond regulations to display or promote an image that is trademarked - it is considered a commercial display.  The IOC has the measure in place so that nations can't advertise or use different logos for the purposes of selling merchandise.  The Australian IOC has insisted this is a tradition that has nothing to do with selling merchandise - in fact, not a single piece of Australian merch features this boxing kangaroo.

Defending the flag, Australian Olympic Committee spokesman Mike Tancred emphasized the flag as embodying the fun, pugnacious side of Australia's athletes.  "The boxing kangaroo is the team mascot," Tancred continued.  "Look, you cannot buy any boxing kangaroo merchandise here.  We would never engage in ambush marketing."  Still, it turns out that not all Australians are fond of the flag - which was originally created by America's Cup winner Alan Bond in 1983.

UPDATE: In the end, the IOC ruled just yesterday that the flag could stay.

With the Olympics in front of us this week, this may be a good time to note the increased commercial aspect - boxing kangaroos notwithstanding - of the Games.  Below is a breakdown of how the IOC uses the billions of dollars they receive from corporate sponsors and television rights contracts.  You can click on the image to open it larger, but the long and the short of things is that the U.S. dominates the Olympic movement.

Important things to take away: two-thirds of the corporate sponsorships come from American companies and the American TV rights for the Games is more than all other nations TV rights combined.  Wow.

In the end, it makes me wonder what is really the big deal about a flag hanging in the Olympic Village.  But with economic interests as deeply invested as we see above, the IOC has to desperately protect (insulate, even) the Games from any unofficial interests.

In some cases, like the Australian kangaroo, common sense was victorious.  Other cases, unfortunately, make me wonder whether all of this corporate control over the Olympics is such a good thing.  Example?  Here we go.

In British Columbia, the province that contains the Olympic city of Vancouver, the "First Nations" moniker refers to the people who can trace their ancestry to the aboriginal people that inhabited the land that is now British Columbia prior to the arrival of Europeans and Americans in the late 18th century.  The Vancouver Olympic organizing committee invited representatives from the First Nations to take part in the Games in a variety of ways (look for the connections at the opening ceremony on Friday).

The Vancouver Olympic Logo takes its design elements 

from First Nations Culture

This partnership is actually "the first time in history that indigenous peoples have been recognized by the IOC as official partners in hosting the games." Part of their participation as hosts included opening a food pavilion at the Olympics that would feature haute couture food from all of the indigenous tribes that comprise the First Nations.

The Olympic Logo commercialized a rock formation - known as an "inuksuk" - 

located on Whistler Mountain in British Columbia.  

The name of this particular inuksuk is "Illanaaq."

Sounds like a great story.  Until one of the food items caused an IOC-sponsor panic.  That item?  The First Nations' Bison Burger.  What's the problem you ask?  Well, turns out that McDonald's took umbrage as an official IOC sponsor, specifically the fast-food giant wants no confusion as to who can make and sell the Olympics' official burger.  That's right, in Vancouver for the next couple of weeks, McDonald's sells the only burger in town.

As a result, if you want to eat bison between two pieces of bread at the First Nations' food tent, you can't ask for a burger, you'll have to ask coordinating chef Andrew George for "sliders, or bannockwiches."

It's all part of what Bill Cooper, head of commercial rights management for the Vancouver Olympic Committee, says is included in the official sponsors' "significant commitment and investment" that forbids "certain brands or words that create special associations with our sponsors and their products."

That's fine.  It's still a burger to me.

Lindsey Vonn Controversy Continues

The controversy that has had the web in a stir recently has now been extended to The Seattle Times and the Boston Globe.

This week, Vonn is on the cover of Ski Magazine, with the following quote from the publishers on the mag's Facebook page:

"Sports Illustrated put Lindsey Vonn on the cover of their Olympics issue; so did we.  Which is better: their staged shot of Vonn looking like a delicate snow bunny?  Or our high-speed race shot of Vonn looking like the world beater she is?"

Vonn in action

For point of reference, the Lindsey Vonn Sports Illustrated cover is here:

Snow bunny?

Many comments online have cited SI's corresponding Sidney Crosby cover as the same thing as doing the same thing as Vonn's cover.  I highly disagree, but here is the corresponding SI cover for Canada is here:

His helmet is off, but the focus of the shot is on his face

Thoughts, anyone?