First came ESPNU, an all sports network devoted to college athletics. It was followed quickly by what is now called CBS College Sports. Both have wide distribution thanks to the ability of their corporate parents to leverage their popular channels to force cable systems to carry the college sports networks if they wanted to get ESPN or any of Viacom's properties such as Showtime.

Then, we got mtn, but the problem was no one could see it, not even the people living within the footprint of the Mountain West Conference who presumably would be interested in watching. Then came the Big Ten Network, with instant carriage on DirecTV by handing over an equity stake to Rupert Murdoch, who then owned the sat network. However, with BTN came nasty disputes with cable systems, primarily the large systems led by Comcast and Time Warner so that in its season, Comcast viewers in Big Ten country either had to switch to satellite or did without.

Why the quickie history lesson? The next step in specialty college sports networks is about to make its presence felt. What could come after channels devoted to college sports in general or a particular conference? Why, one devoted solely to a single university of course. The University of Texas is planning a channel devoted to Longhorn athletics and is currently discussing partnerships and carriage issues with the two satellite channels and the major cable networks. It will not, at least initially, carry football or most men's basketball games as those rights are held by the Big XII and sold as league-wide deals, which places the channel at a severe disadvantage in getting viewers. I just don't know how big the market is, even in Texas, for a channel devoted to baseball, volleyball, track and field hockey. There is only so many hours of watching Bevo graze in a field that even the most diehard Longhorn can take. Nevertheless, this experiment will be watched very closely in certain offices in the South and around Los Angeles.

The NCAA is going to be faced with an interesting decision at its next meeting. Letters requesting that the NCAA place beer on its list of products that cannot be advertised during college games has been sent to Myles Brand signed by 60 Division I presidents, 240 athletic directors and 101 football and basketball coaches. The current list of banned products includes cigarettes, guns, nightclubs and gambling. The petition was sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest and copies of the letters can be found here.

The list of signatories is interesting in a number of respects. You will see presidents of some well known and elite academic institutions (Stanford, Georgetown) and some notorious party schools (Florida State, Tulane) and the school with the largest athletic budget in all of college athletics, Ohio State. It is a broad-based and movement that hopefully will find a receptive audience among the NCAA Executive Committee.

It has already found a receptive audience in one conference. The Mountain West Conference does not carry beer commercials on its network, the mtn. It also doesn't carry commercials for Viagra and similar products, which is a blessing for those few people who actually can receive the mtn. Declining Viagra and Cialis commercials would be a public service that I recommend that the Big Ten Network and the WWLS adopt immediately. Football and basketball fans would be forever grateful.

With the death of Georgia Frontiere and the possibility of a large estate tax bill, the prospect that the St.Louis Rams may be sold has been bouncing around for the last couple of months. Of course, the fact that new owner Chip Rosenbloom lives in California probably hasn't hurt the talk any.

One of the names that has recently floated to the surface as a potential buyer is Rush Limbaugh, noted clown of the radio airwaves. You see, Rush is a huge football fan as we know from his days, however few, on Monday Night Football. He doesn't know anything about football, as we also know from his days on Monday Night Football, but that hasn't stopped him from amassing a fortune talking about politics, which he also doesn't know anything about. Rush grew up in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, just downriver from St. Louis, and while he claims that has nothing to do with his interest in the team, there is little doubt that it adds a little extra to the business decision he will make.

Can he afford it? Well, he just signed a new deal with Premiere Radio Networks estimated to be worth $300 million, but that doesn't go too far in today's NFL. Rush claims to have no debt, but Forbes values the Rams at just over $900 million so he will need partners and a significant debt to acquire the team. He, or any new owner (or the existing ownership) will likely need St. Louis to step up and renovate the Jones Dome to bring it line with all of the new stadiums brought into the league since it was built. The Rams lag behind much of the league in stadium revenue.

Of course, there is one final hurdle to any attempt by Rush to buy the Rams. There is the little matter of his conviction for drug possession. I'm not sure how Commissioner Goodell will react to a potential owner with a drug conviction when he is trying to clean up the league's drug problem with players, but it would seem to be difficult to square accepting an ownership application from someone who has a drug conviction and then trying to enforce suspensions on players.

With the death of Georgia Frontiere and the possibility of a large estate tax bill, the prospect that the St.Louis Rams may be sold has been bouncing around for the last couple of months. Of course, the fact that new owner Chip Rosenbloom lives in California probably hasn't hurt the talk any.

One of the names that has recently floated to the surface as a potential buyer is Rush Limbaugh, noted clown of the radio airwaves. You see, Rush is a huge football fan as we know from his days, however few, on Monday Night Football. He doesn't know anything about football, as we also know from his days on Monday Night Football, but that hasn't stopped him from amassing a fortune talking about politics, which he also doesn't know anything about. Rush grew up in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, just downriver from St. Louis, and while he claims that has nothing to do with his interest in the team, there is little doubt that it adds a little extra to the business decision he will make.

Can he afford it? Well, he just signed a new deal with Premiere Radio Networks estimated to be worth $300 million, but that doesn't go too far in today's NFL. Rush claims to have no debt, but Forbes values the Rams at just over $900 million so he will need partners and a significant debt to acquire the team. He, or any new owner (or the existing ownership) will likely need St. Louis to step up and renovate the Jones Dome to bring it line with all of the new stadiums brought into the league since it was built. The Rams lag behind much of the league in stadium revenue.

Of course, there is one final hurdle to any attempt by Rush to buy the Rams. There is the little matter of his conviction for drug possession. I'm not sure how Commissioner Goodell will react to a potential owner with a drug conviction when he is trying to clean up the league's drug problem with players, but it would seem to be difficult to square accepting an ownership application from someone who has a drug conviction and then trying to enforce suspensions on players.

You have to hand it to minor league baseballs - those teams can dream really up some creative promotions. The recent promotion held by the Grand Prairie AirHogs (don't you just love the name) , was perhaps inevitable given recent publicity concerning a certain baseball star's love life. The AirHogs are an independent team, playing in the American Association and located about 20 miles west of Dallas. This is their first year of operation.

The team held A-Rod and Madonna Night. Anyone wearing an A-Rod jersey (presumably from the Mariners, Rangers or Yankees) or dressed like Madonna could buy a ticket to Wednesday's game for only a dollar. A-Rod and Madonna couples were then treated to a phony wedding ceremony between innings and had opportunities to win a house, car and other luxury items.

Last month, the AirHogs packed the stand with another great promotion. The team gave away a funeral, complete with headstone, casket and plot. There were pallbearer races between innings and fans were encouraged to wear black.

The spirit of Bill Veeck is alive and well in Grand Prairie.

Okay, it's not sports, but it's too funny not to pass along. Apparently, a 19 year old Minnesota boy slept through high school civics class or he would have learned that selling your vote on eBay is not the best way to participate in the civic endeavor we call democracy. Not only that, it's not even remotely legal. University of Minnesota student, Max Sanders, offered to sell his vote in the presidential election in November to the highest bidder, with a minimum bid of $10.

His listing included the comments, "Good luck" and "You're (sic) country needs you", written by Sanders using an alias.

Sanders has been charged with one felony count of bribery, treating and soliciting which carries a sentence of up to five years imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000. For his part, Sanders maintains it was all just a joke. The listing received no bids before eBay took it down.

There must be a money tree somewhere in Mike Hamilton's backyard or maybe he discovered a wreck of a pirate ship laden with gold at the bottom of the Tennessee River just outside Neyland Stadium. How else can you explain the raises he passed out yesterday.

Both the University of Tennessee football coach and men's basketball coach got contract extensions with substantial raises yesterday. The often criticized Phil Fulmer, whose tenure at UT has divided fans as the memory of the Vols national championship in 1998 has faded, received a raise of $350,000 taking his salary up to $2.4 million and extending his contract to 2014. The new contract will extend automatically one year if the Vols win eight games. There are annual raises, incentive bonuses and loyalty bonuses also built into the new agreement.

Pearl received a $300,000 raise, taking his salary to $1. 6 million. His contract now runs to 2014 and also provides for annual raises, loyalty bonuses, and incentive bonuses. Since Pearl will be receiving an immediate $250,000 signing bonus and a $1,5 million retention bonus, his contract contains a $2.5 million buyout clause that decreases annually to $1 million should he leave by the end of the term in 2014.

UT's other high profile coach, women's basketball coach Pat Summit, is still in discussion over the modification of her contract so no announcement about the terms of her raise was made.

The sums being paid to these coaches is not too out of line with the rest of the SEC. Pearl becomes the third highest paid coach in the conference, while Fulmer will only be the seventh, which is stunningly low. The idea the there are six coaches in the SEC making more than $2.4 million per year says everything there is to say about how badly skewed we have allowed college athletics to get. The UT coaches got these raises at a time in which the UT faculty received no raises and the students faced substantial tuition increases because the university is facing over $11 million in budget cuts. Granted, the athletic department self-generates its funding, although that probably includes some amount for student fees, nevertheless, the message being sent is hardly the one college athletics should be sending in the face of the economic difficulties being faced all across the country, and especially at state universities.

What's the price of freedom in the NBA? Apparently, the price tag is $75 million, at least if you're a bunch of cowboys. The Clay Bennett ownership group has reached a settlement agreement with the City of Seattle clearing the way for the Sonics move to Oklahoma City for the 2008-09 season. In return for agreeing to the termination of the Sonics lease, the ownership group will pay the City $45 million and agree to leave the Sonics name and colors behind for a future NBA team. In addition, the Bennett group will pay Seattle an additional $30 million in 2013 if the state legislature approves funding for a new arena or Key Arena renovation next year and Seattle does not get a replacement NBA team (the Hornets, Kings??) within the next five years.

The one potential fly in the ointment is the lawsuit being pursued by Howard Schultz, he of Starbucks fame, against the Bennett group. The City has agreed that if the team is ultimately forced to move back to Seattle as a result of the Schultz suit, however unlikely, the city will refund $45 million and if the team plays in Key Arena during the next two seasons, then the Bennett group won't owe the additional $30 million.

The NBA was apparently part of the settlement process and has also supposedly committed to Seattle officials to assist in returning a team to Seattle within five years, assuming the arena issue is resolved. An ownership group is in place, headed by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and the outline of a deal on renovations for Key Arena are in place. What is needed is action by the legislature and that is by no means assured. However, the Mayor and Governor are solidly behind the plan and with local ownership not likely to have the same issues as the Bennett group presented, I would be more optimistic this time.

The popularity of season long series like NASCAR's Sprint Cup and the PGA's new Fed-Ex Cup seems to be growing, both among fans and the participants. It is now spreading across the pond based on yesterday's announcement by the British horse racing industry of its new Sovereign Series. The new season long competition, kicking off in 2009, will be composed of ten Group I races (the European equivalent to North America's Grade I) stretching from May to October, contested at each of Britain's seven major tracks, at distances ranging from one mile to a mile and 4 furlongs and including races restricted to three year olds, for older horses and for three year olds and up.

Points will be awarded to the first three finishers and the horse with the most points at the end of the season, following the contesting of the Champion Stakes, will be declared the Series winner. The Series will have a prize pool of 2 million pounds; it is still to be determined if that goes entirely to the winner or if it will be split among the first three finishers. An additional 3 million pounds will be added to the purses of the 10 races involved, which are already contested for total purses equalling at least 5 million pounds.

One major problem will be a calendar clash with the season ending Champion Stakes. It is contested at Newmarket in October, in close proximity to Europe's most prestigious race, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Longchamps in Paris, which is the world's richest turf race, and the Breeders Cup races in the US. It is not at all clear that an owner would want to run in the Champion Stakes if he had a horse capable of winning the Arc and the Breeders Cup, even if the2 million pounds went entirely to the series champion. The Series promoters have a year to work out the calendar kinks and let's hope they can manage to arrange it so that a horse could run in all three, perhaps by skipping the Sovereign Series September race. Maybe the Champion Stakes could be moved a little closer to the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, to enable an owner to compete in all three season ending events.

In any event, this is an exciting idea and an excellent way to promote British racing. The planners expect to add an additional 3 million pounds to be spent on promotion and that is welcome news indeed. Racing is too fine a sport to be left to its own devices. We have seen what happens without innovation and the injection of outside funds and energy like this idea should go a long way towards rekindling the British public's deeply felt affinity for the sport. If only their American counterparts were listening. This was the original concept behind the Breeders Cup, but the promotion efforts seems to have diminished over the years. More and better attention needs to be paid to that. Automatic qualification for winning certain races is an excellent beginning. Allocation of dollars to a major promotional campaign would be even better. The great stories around racing need to be told to the American public throughout the year and not just during the first week in May.

We all know that lawyers can be creative, which can be both positive for their clients and sometimes negative for society. There has been no shortage of shall we say unique theories offered lately in courtrooms around the country. In cases involving sports, we have seen a judge in Kentucky hand down an opinion that there is no college football team in the country worse than the Duke Blue Devils.

In Seattle, the City's suit against the Sonics to enforce its lease with the team for the Key Center is now in the hands of the judge. There is little about this trial that has been, ah, traditional, other than the Sonics argument that money would be an appropriate remedy for terminating the lease two years early and moving the team to Oklahoma City. The trial took a bizarre turn on Friday with the revelation of an email from former Senator Slade Gorton, now a member of the law firm representing the City as trial counsel, who was working with a group of local executives including Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer who had an interest in buying the team if Clay Bennett could be forced to sell it. The conflict of interest revealed on the trial's last day shortly before closing arguments deeply embarrassed the city and its law firm and royally ticked off the judge. How it plays out in the final judgement remains to be seen, but it can't be good for the home team.

The most unique theory I have encountered lately comes to us from Pensacola, Florida and while it's not sports related, it's just too good not to pass it share it with you. An enterprising and creative defense attorney in Pensacola is using Google search data to show jurors that what their neighbors have been searching for in sexual subjects is broader than they might have suspected to demonstrate that the community standards as applied to obscenity should be far broader than alleged by the prosecution. The defense is so novel, in fact, that a questions remains as to whether the judge will allow the evidence to be admitted as evidence. It was presented in a deposition and the prosecution has yet to determine if it would object to its admission.

The search data used in the Pensacola case poses the interesting question: What city's residents are most interested in looking up porn on the Internet? The unexpected answer and dubious honor being awarded to my hometown - the top ten list:

The 10 American Cities Most Likely To Search For Obscene Material

1. Louisville, KY

2. Rochester, NY

3. Philadelphia, PA

4. Newark, NJ

5. Los Angeles, CA

6. Irvine, CA

7. Pittsburgh, PA

8. Las Vegas, NV

9. Albany, NY

10. Orlando, FL

I don't know what to make of a list in which Louisville leads LA and Vegas, not to mention the conservative, right wing hot spot of Irvine. It's a list that doesn't lend itself to any easy analysis so just take as it is - Louisville gets to claim the title as the nation's most obscene city.

In the latest installment of the continuing soap opera that is the relationship between Jimmy Dolan and Gary Bettman, the NHL has significantly upped the ante in the antitrust suit filed by Madison Square Garden and the Rangers against the NHL. In a counter-claim filed last week, the NHL seeks the approval of the Court to strip Madison Square Garden of the Rangers, asking the Court to approve internal league disciplinary measures that would lead to a forced sale of the Rangers.

The NHL contends that the Garden has violated several league rules to which it consented as a prerequisite for franchise ownership - including one that prohibits member clubs from taking the league to court, as MSG has done three times since last September. In an announcement of the filing the league also indicated that it would be seeking compensatory damages, which would undoubtedly include at least its legal fees since the MSG began the suit last year.

What's a little litigation between loved ones? The earlier the league can find a buyer for the Rangers and get MSG out of its hair the better. The problem is even if they can find a buyer, where will the team play, if not the Garden? If it is the Garden, then do you want a pissed off Dolan as your landlord? I don't know which is worse, an incompetent Dolan as owner, or a pissed off Dolan as landlord doing what he can to wreck your tenant. It's not a great position to find yourself but I'm sure that Bettman will find a way to make it worse - he usually does.

In the latest installment of the continuing soap opera that is the relationship between Jimmy Dolan and Gary Bettman, the NHL has significantly upped the ante in the antitrust suit filed by Madison Square Garden and the Rangers against the NHL. In a counter-claim filed last week, the NHL seeks the approval of the Court to strip Madison Square Garden of the Rangers, asking the Court to approve internal league disciplinary measures that would lead to a forced sale of the Rangers.

The NHL contends that the Garden has violated several league rules to which it consented as a prerequisite for franchise ownership - including one that prohibits member clubs from taking the league to court, as MSG has done three times since last September. In an announcement of the filing the league also indicated that it would be seeking compensatory damages, which would undoubtedly include at least its legal fees since the MSG began the suit last year.

What's a little litigation between loved ones? The earlier the league can find a buyer for the Rangers and get MSG out of its hair the better. The problem is even if they can find a buyer, where will the team play, if not the Garden? If it is the Garden, then do you want a pissed off Dolan as your landlord? I don't know which is worse, an incompetent Dolan as owner, or a pissed off Dolan as landlord doing what he can to wreck your tenant. It's not a great position to find yourself but I'm sure that Bettman will find a way to make it worse - he usually does.

Anybody who thought that Notre Dame's troubles over the last few years would give NBC pause when it came time to renew the peacock's contract to broadcast the Irish can rest easy now. NBC and Notre Dame announced today that their exclusive contract has been extended through the 2015 season despite the Irish having the lowest ratings since the contract began in 1991.

The renewal of the NBC contract should also effectively end any discussion that Notre Dame might join a conference before the end of the 2015 football season. Although financial terms weren't disclosed, it is unlikely that the deal calls for payments much lower than the $9 million per year that the Irish receive under the current deal. With that money flowing in and their seat at the BCS table secure, why should the Irish give all that up to join a conference. Unless the Big East grows some balls and tells Notre Dame to join for football or leave for all other sports, the issue of conference affiliation is dead until 2015. That likely means the next round of conference expansion/realignment won't take place before then either.

The new stadium rising up next to Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands doesn't yet have a name, because the Giants and the Jets, who will be the sharing haven't found the title sponsor. However, the two teams have come up with a stadium sponsorship program unique in the NFL and probably in arenas and stadiums in the US. Instead of securing numerous sponsors for every nook and cranny of the scoreboards and the walls, the teams are selling five sponsorship packages, one for each corner and one for naming rights to the stadium.

To date, two of the corners have reportedly been sold, with Met Life having been announced on Monday. Anheuser-Busch is supposed to be announced today as the second corner sponsor, according to the Wall Street Journal. The corner sponsors get exclusive rights to ads inside the stadium and on the scoreboards to be erected in "their" corner. While no price was announced, it is estimated that the corner sponsorship is being sold for $10-$15 million per year, while the naming rights is currently being marketed for $25 million per year. T

The less is more approach is a good one and should result in greater sponsorship dealers in the long run. I believe that most companies would be willing to pay more for sponsorship where they could be assured of space for branding whose message would not be lost in the clutter of other companies that is usually found in stadiums and arenas. For their sake, I hope that the Giants and Jets get Anheuser-Busch to sign a binding long-term agreement quickly before any deal with InBev goes through, since sports sponsorships, and particularly big dollar deals, are not InBev's preferred marketing strategy.

As most everyone knows by now, Tiger Woods will be having surgery soon to repair his knee and will miss the rest of the current golf season, including the remaining majors, the Fed-Ex Championship and the Ryder Cup. Here in Louisville, where the Ryder Cup will be played this fall, Tiger's absence is being acutely felt. I don't believe that attendance will suffer, since it's been sold out for months, however, NBC is concerned about its ratings.

I think the same will hold true for the remaining majors, the British Open and the PGA. I don't think ticket sales will suffer but television ratings are likely to plummet. Any tournament without Tiger is likely to draw about 50% fewer viewers. So, the biggest challenge to PGA tour officials is to drum up sufficiently compelling stories that the casual fan, who normally on tunes in when Tiger is in contention, will turn on his or her TV set and watch. In many respects, Tiger's absence for the next six months is a window of opportunity that the PGA Tour would never otherwise have to develop the next generation of stars in the mind of the public. It is a golden opportunity to showcase Tiger's successor(s) to sponsors, tournament directors and the public. How well the Tour officials handle this opportunity will be more interesting to follow than the story of what happens to marketing plans of companies that use Tiger as a spokesperson.

For further discussion and different points of view of the effect of Tiger's injury, take a look at these posts from Darren Rovell and The Sports Economist.