CBS and the Southeastern Conference have extended their broadcast contract by 15 years, an unprecedented length for a collegiate deal, but more impressive than the length of the contract is its breadth. Beginning with the 2009-10 season, CBS Sports will continue to be the exclusive network broadcaster of SEC home football and regular-season basketball games, but the contract announced last week also covers digital, Internet, wireless, video-on-demand, data, and highlight rights across all CBS platforms, including the CBS College Sports Network.

ESPNU is graduating to HD, but the network can’t do it alone. Spreading the wealth among three major mobile-production providers -– Lyon Video, Sure Shot, and Token Creek -– ESPNU HD has found the production firepower to produce more than 200 live HD events in its first year, including all of its Thursday and Saturday college-football games.

As the use of broadband video continues to grow exponentially and the cost of HD production equipment continues to fall, the same question is facing every collegiate athletic conference: “How do we take advantage of new video production and distribution technologies to enhance the brand of our schools and drive athletic department revenues?” The Sports Video Group, in association with Collegiate Images, ESPNU, CBS College Sports Television, the Horizon League, and the Broadcast Education Association (BEA), is tackling this question and more with the launch of a new website this summer, SVGU.org. SVG Editorial Director Ken Kerschbaumer explains the new initiative in the latest edition of the Collegiate Images Commissioners' Report.

3D video technology has become a reality on college campuses. In fact, last season, Florida State University invited high school seniors to don a pair of 3D glasses and watch FSU football highlights in 3D in the newly designed theater in its athletic center. Florida State University Seminole Productions produced stereoscopic 3D using a dual-projector system and a 3D process developed by 3dh Communications. This season, the school will continue to create 3D highlights for recruits and will also provide the technology to coaches, with practices taped in 3D for the first time.

The nation’s first television network dedicated to a collegiate athletic conference is experiencing some technical growing pains. The Mtn., which launched in 2006 to provide exclusive coverage of the Mountain West conference, is housed in a former Comcast Media Center control room in Littleton, CO. Now preparing to kick off its third year of operations, the Mtn. has officially outgrown its nursery.

Working in a brand-new control room in a brand-new stadium might be a video coordinator’s dream, but that’s before that coordinator knows what he is getting into. David Belawski’s first day as assistant director of video services at the University of Central Florida Athletic Association involved getting acquainted with the sparkling new control room in Bright House Networks Stadium as well as the streaming operations required in the association’s other facilities. Belawski took a break from his hectic schedule to share with SVG-U the challenges he faces at a program that, from an equipment standpoint, is the envy of its conference.

SVG is pleased to announce that Studer has renewed their premier sponsorship. Sports Video Group would like to welcome Polar Mobile as our newest corporate sponsor.

Gene Upshaw, the longtime head of the N.F.L players association and a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, has died of pancreatic cancer at 63. His death leaves a void at the top of the union at a difficult time.

Oklahoma’s season-opening football game against Chattanooga on Saturday, Aug. 30 at 6:00 PM CT will be televised live on pay-per-view by Big 12 Special Order Sports, FSN Southwest’s pay-per-view division. The telecast will be available on participating cable television systems in Oklahoma and Texas and nationwide to satellite dish customers. Suggested retail price is $29.95. A list of participating programming providers carrying the PPV game will be announced later.

Yahoo is giving its Rivals.com draft sports site responsibility for programming content for collegiate and prep sports, Sports Business Journal reports. Up to this point, coverage of those sports had been on the general Yahoo Sports portal. The pages will be on the Rivals site starting Tuesday, more than a year after Yahoo bought the site for about $100 million.

In the cathedral of cross-promotion that is ESPN, another radio show is about to show up on TV, too. Colin Cowherd, who replaced Tony Kornheiser when he joined ESPN Radio in 2004, gets his weekday The Herd (10 a.m.-1 p.m. ET) simulcast on ESPNU starting Monday. That college-themed channel has 21 million households now, while ESPN has 96 million.

Taking a step that professors may view as a bit counterproductive, some universities are doling out Apple iPhones and Internet-capable iPods to students.

The BCS is many things: Biggest Cop-out in Sports, Barely Competent Setup, Brainless, Cockeyed and Stupid— OK, I'm behaving childish here — but it's not what its acronym promises.

The NCAA banned the horse-collar tackle from college football. Following the lead of the NFL and acting on a proposal made by its Football Rules Committee, the NCAA will assess a penalty this season when a runner is yanked to the ground from the inside collar of his shoulder pads or jersey.

Let's be clear. There is nothing wrong with paying athletes to play sports. Professional sports is big business in America. The athletes, as a labor force, are rightly paid what the market will bear. That's the professional model. But it isn't the right approach for the collegiate model of sports.

The University of Southern California and the University of South Carolina share the same initials. But they won't be sharing a trademark logo.

The NCAA is rejecting calls from critics to alter its policy allowing beer and wine cooler ads on telecasts of college sports, saying the current policy is sufficient.

Ever since Rutgers, New Jersey’s largest state university, began its campaign several years ago to become a big-time football power, bad things have happened. Less-glamorous sports teams — tennis, swimming and fencing among them — were downgraded to intramural status to save on the budget, and more and more money has gone to football rather than academics.

Even with 34 bowl games already on the college football calendar, Ralph Morton sees no reason why a 35th couldn't work. The director of the Seattle Sports Commission said that his group is in the early stages of trying to bring a bowl game back to Seattle, hoping to develop a relationship with the Pac-10 as one of its anchor tenants for a game that could begin in 2010.

Saturday matinees for basketball? A 10th member of the WAC? More regional matchups in college football? Another round of conference realignments? All are possible results of escalating travel costs, which will eat an extra $268,000 out of Boise State’s athletics budget this school year.

To fully understand Notre Dame and its reasoning for remaining independent, you have to know its storied past—a past littered with national championships and Heisman Trophy winners, and a past that captivated all of America and made the Irish her team, with Ronald Reagan playing the “Gipp” and Rudy becoming an instant sports classic.

David Katz is heading into a Web site battle against Internet sports powerhouses like the ones run by ESPN, Yahoo, Fox Sports, Major League Baseball and AOL.

Georgia Tech athletics director Dan Radakovich admits he has never watched a football game on a … computer. Which is the only way, other than being in Bobby Dodd Stadium, fans will be able to watch the Yellow Jackets’ opener against Jacksonville State on Aug. 28.

Baseball umpires and management signed an agreement Wednesday that will allow the sport to start using instant replay to help determine calls on the field.

ESPN and Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) have reached a digital rights agreement that will extend and expand their current agreement through 2013. The agreement includes rights for ESPN.com, ESPN360.com, ESPN’s mobile initiatives (ESPN Mobile TV, ESPN Mobile Publishing, ESPN MVP), content on emerging platforms including video game consoles, interactive television and portable devices (ex: iTunes/iPod, Zune) and syndication of ESPN-licensed content.