Espn Television Network

Amid expectations of more coverage for West Coast games and events, ESPN is officially opening its 12,300-square-foot studio today in the middle of LA Live, the entertainment complex across the street from Staples Center. The national sports cable network, which reaches 98 million viewers, will broadcast its first 10 p.m. "SportsCenter" from the new studio tonight.

Admit it. You had no idea ESPN has 18 platforms. But they do and there is Super Bowl coverage on all of them. And this isn't even the network that is actually televising the game, so ESPN has to get creative. For example, Friday at 12:30 on the actual, original ESPN platform, Mike Tirico will host "SportsCenter." And not just any "SportsCenter," but a "SportsCenter Special: The Champions" with analysts who have won Super Bowl rings -- Tedy Bruschi, Mike Ditka, Trent Dilfer, Jon Gruden, Keyshawn Johnson, Matt Millen, Mark Schlereth and Steve Young.

The Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court ruled that SportsChannel America could not enjoin the NHL from broadcasting its games over the ESPN cable television network. SportsChannel America had broadcast NHL games for the last four years.

Thanks to a couple of really big games from ageless quarterback Brett Favre, Walt Disney Co.'s sports cable channel ESPN had its best season ever carrying the NFL's "Monday Night Football" franchise. ESPN, which shells out about $1.1 billion a year for its football package, said "Monday Night Football" was the most-watched show on cable television this fall. This is ESPN's fourth year of "Monday Night Football," and its current deal expires after the 2013 season. Among all the rights holders for the game, it holds the most expensive contract.

Walt Disney Co.'s ABC and ESPN and Time Warner Inc.'s TNT agreed Wednesday to pay the National Basketball Assn. $7.4 billion over eight years for rights to televise its games and, in one of the first deals of its kind, stream action on the Internet and mobile devices. The deal, which begins in 2008 and runs through the 2015-16 season, works out to an average of about $930 million a year. That's a 22% increase over the $765-million average under the current agreement, industry sources said.

The medium is the message. --Marshall "Boomer" McLuhan * What, in the name of "SportsCenter," "NFL PrimeTime," "RPM 2Night" and all else we now know to be sacred, would Marshall McLuhan have made of ESPN? McLuhan was the Swami of his day and age, only without the goofball nicknames and the over-the-top Howard Cosell impressions.

With a potentially fatal car crash on its hands and yards of tape on its recorders, ESPN played its live coverage of Greg Moore's crash close to the vest Sunday during its broadcast of the Marlboro 500. Moore later died from injuries suffered on lap 10 of the 250-lap race at California Speedway in Fontana, the final event of the Championship Auto Racing Teams FedEx championship series.

Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN cable-television network must face allegations by Quiksilver Inc. that a logo for its international X Games sports competition violates a clothing trademark, a federal judge ruled. The emblem for ESPN's extreme-sports franchise is "strikingly similar" to the stylized X used by Quiksilver in the Gen X line of clothing, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon said in a Friday ruling in New York.

Walt Disney Co. and its ABC and ESPN television networks were sued by a Racing Hall of Fame jockey and the trainer of the filly Ruffian to stop a movie about the horse's career, cut short by a 1975 accident at Belmont Park. The complaint alleges violations of trademarks held by Jacinto Vasquez, Ruffian's jockey, and trainer Frank Whiteley. The movie, set for release Saturday, is falsely billed as a true story, according to the complaint.

Concerned about harming its business relationship with the NFL, ESPN called an audible Wednesday and announced it was canceling "Playmakers," its seamy pro football drama. Mark Shapiro, ESPN vice president in charge of programming and production, said the NFL's reaction to the series was "the primary factor" in deciding to cancel the weekly show. "But we made the decision," Shapiro said. "We do not let anyone dictate our programming agenda."

The Lakers just won the NBA championship, and Southern California celebrated with them, with hundreds of thousands of fans attracted to a parade down Figueroa Street and a rally at the Coliseum. There are 122 teams in the NBA, NFL, NHL and Major League Baseball. And Southern California is home to the team that best repays its fans "for all the emotion, money and time fans invest," according to an ESPN study to be unveiled today. That team is not the Lakers. That team is the Angels.

Amid expectations of more coverage for West Coast games and events, ESPN is officially opening its 12,300-square-foot studio today in the middle of LA Live, the entertainment complex across the street from Staples Center. The national sports cable network, which reaches 98 million viewers, will broadcast its first 10 p.m. "SportsCenter" from the new studio tonight.

Walt Disney Co., seeking to broaden the audience for its broadcast and cable shows on the Internet's most popular video site, struck a deal Monday with Google Inc.'s YouTube to distribute short-form content from ESPN and ABC. The agreement would extend the Internet reach for ESPN's sports highlights and ABC News updates and provide another outlet for video snippets taken from the ABC broadcast network and ABC Family cable channel shows.

Games in the 76 Classic college basketball tournament will be played in front of thousands of empty seats at the Anaheim Convention Center today through Sunday, and the event organizers couldn't care less. They didn't mind last week, either, when only a few thousand spectators dotted a 19,000-seat arena in Puerto Rico for another of their tournaments.

Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN cable-television network must face allegations by Quiksilver Inc. that a logo for its international X Games sports competition violates a clothing trademark, a federal judge ruled. The emblem for ESPN's extreme-sports franchise is "strikingly similar" to the stylized X used by Quiksilver in the Gen X line of clothing, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon said in a Friday ruling in New York.

The 30-second spot is called "Dunk. " Its script has six lines of dialogue, the cast numbers seven. It stars Sparks forward Candace Parker -- she of NCAA title, Olympic gold medal, WNBA rookie of the year and MVP all-in-one-year fame. Thirty seconds, and with that, she joined what is mostly an athletic boys club whose members include ESPN "SportsCenter" anchors, athletes and a roly poly, furry, fruity collection of college mascots tapped to do wickedly funny "SportsCenter" promo spots.

DO they still call baseball America's pastime? Because it isn't. America's pastime is betting on the NFL. Also, pretending to work while you make your NFL office-pool picks; also, pretending to work while you're checking an injury report on one of your fantasy league players.

Last winter, everyone wanted a piece of Martin Sheen. He was in the middle of the first season of his award-winning NBC drama, "The West Wing," and had no time to attend the countless charity functions and awards shows he was invited to. Then "The ESPYs" called, and he paid his own way to get there. After Matt Damon and Ben Affleck took home Oscars for "Good Will Hunting" in 1998, they could have had anything they asked for in Hollywood.

There have been about 325 ESPN "SportsCenter" commercials made. They have featured hundreds of star athletes -- from Gordie Howe to Andy Roddick, from Kobe Bryant to Drew Brees. Some have been kind of funny, some laugh-out-loud funny. And after going through all 325, there wasn't one that wasn't at least a little funny. Here are my top five (actually, six) favorites: 1. Made in 2006, it features the Manning family.

It was an announcement that would have left even Howard Cosell speechless, had he still been around. "Monday Night Football," a national phenomenon that became the longest-running sports program to ever hit prime time, the show that enabled ABC to finally break the CBS-NBC stranglehold on the NFL, was going to basic cable. Of course Cosell lived in an era when the three networks ruled the airwaves and cable was a novelty for those with too much free time.