The 2014 Winter Olympics officially begin in early February. After its successful coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, NBC will broadcast the Winter Olympics to TV sets, browsers and apps across the United States. That’s wonderful news for sports junkies, but what does it mean for NBC’s Premier League coverage, and how will it be impacted?

We previously reported that NBC Sports soccer host Rebecca Lowe will be one of the hosts of NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics, which means that Lowe will take a temporary break from hosting the Premier League studio show in Connecticut to travel to Russia to bring the Olympics into our homes. The very accomplished Steve Bower will take her spot while she’s away.

The only other change is that some select Premier League matches will be shown on USA Network instead of NBCSN. USA has a HD version of its channel, so the games will continue to look as crisp as possible.

As of press time, the list of Premier League matches that will be moved from NBCSN to USA are as follows (these are subject to change):

All times Eastern

Saturday, February 8:

Liverpool vs Arsenal, 7:45am, USA Network
TBD vs TBD, 10am, USA Network

Sunday, February 9:

Spurs vs Everton, 8:30am, USA Network
Manchester United vs Fulham, 11am, USA Network

Saturday, February 22:

TBD vs TBD, 10am, USA Network

All other matches will air as usual. View the Premier League TV schedule for the latest updates.

In separate but related news, NBC has decided to make the entire Winter Olympics available online for authenticated users via NBC Sports Live Extra except for the Opening Ceremony. The Opening Ceremony will be shown on tape delay during prime-time instead of live. NBC did the same thing for the 2012 Olympic Games, which was met by lots of criticism but generated massive ratings for the network.

Last but not least, keep a close eye on the quality of the NBC Sports Live Extra streams of live Premier League matches during the Winter Olympics. Hopefully the service will be able to withstand the amount of sports fans using the service all at one time. During matches where Manchester United, in particular, plays at 10am ET and is only available via NBC Sports Live Extra and Premier League Extra Time, the quality of the streams showing the other games at that same time sometimes is impacted.

What are your thoughts about NBC moving some of the Premier League matches to USA Network? Let us know in the comments section below.