With college conferences nationwide looking to reduce spending, media days are an expected casualty. Not every conference has its own television network to turn to, but, with help from The Mtn. – Mountain West Sports Network, the Mountain West Conference will produce media days for basketball. When The Mtn. hosts next week’s media days for both men’s and women’s basketball, not only will it boost programming, but having the event in its Denver studios means a cost saving for the network as well as the conference.

While many universities and colleges envision putting students to work producing and broadcasting athletic events, not that many actually find success. But, since 1999, Western Kentucky University has given hundreds of students a chance for real-world experience, courtesy of the Hilltopper Sports Satellite Network.

September 30 marked the 70th anniversary of the first-ever televised football game, a 1939 contest between Waynesburg College and Fordham University. The telecast was produced in conjunction with the RCA/NBC pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair and aired on NBC’s experimental noncommercial television station, W2XBS. NBC’s first professional football telecast came the following month.

Louisiana State University has had video scoreboards installed in its football stadium and basketball, gymnastics, and volleyball arena since 1999, but until this season, the boards, as well as the luxury suites, were fed standard-definition video. When the baseball stadium was equipped with an HD LED video board this year, the athletic department knew that it was time to convert its video operations to high definition.

Paul Krugman, the mixer aboard the Game Creek Liberty truck for ABC’s prime college-football games, walks around a stadium before game time like a pilot pre-flighting an aircraft. He’s looking for the best places to put microphones. It’s more than just the old college try: with home and visiting bands, cheering sections, and stands filled with 18- to 24-year-olds who regard Jackass as a tutorial, the noise is not just big but colorful.

This is the fifth in a series of weekly articles by David Lind, Executive Producer, WIUP-TV. Each week, Lind goes behind the scenes at Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s TV production of the school’s 11-game football season, offering insight into what it takes to produce college-football coverage in a cost-effective manner. In Week 5, the away venue poses some setup challenges, but the student crew pulls through once again.

Filmwerks International has been providing generator support for ESPN College GameDay for more than a decade, but this year, the company is getting creative. Its latest twin pack, a redundant generator system featuring tier-3 engines and remote telemetry, made its GameDay debut this month, but it is the way Filmwerks is able to pack its truck that makes its offering unique.

The Big Ten Network is getting serious about its digital store, which offers access to live streaming of games and on-demand content. The network struck a deal with thePlatform, a provider of white-label video-management services for CBS College Sports, Mobile ESPN, PBS, BBC Worldwide, AP, Travel Channel, and other companies.

For the price of a three-bedroom home with a pool in a leafy suburb, you can now buy something really and truly invaluable. Your own stadium seat.

CBS Sports, the exclusive national over-the-air broadcaster of Southeastern Conference home football games, will stream its entire 2009 SEC college football schedule live on CBS Sports Mobile through the CBS Sports: College application, which is available for iPhone and iPod Touch users.

College athletics is talking self-restraint. Schools in the NCAA's Division I are weighing a modest cut in the number of allowable games in women's basketball, and a similar measure is in the works in the men's game. Division II, meanwhile, is headed for a January vote on a far wider-ranging package of proposals to scale back playing and practice seasons that one official terms "historic."

University presidents in Division II of the National Collegiate Athletic Association sometimes joke that they experience “ticker envy,” a yearning for the visibility that comes with a spot on the ESPN ticker.

The University of Florida athletic association has worked to stop businesses from profiting off Gator quarterback Tim Tebow. Except when its own products are involved.

The Florida-LSU game on Oct. 10 will kick off at 8 p.m. ET and be televised nationally by CBS.

TV stations in Kansas, Minnesota and Washington will be feeding high-school sports coverage to an online aggregator, GrandStadium.TV. The site specializes in streaming high-school games. KWCH-TV, the CBS in Hutchison, Kan.; KHQ-TV, the NBC affiliate in Spokane, Wash.; and KSTC-TV, an indie station in Minneapolis/St. Paul will contribute local material to GrandStadium.TV, the Minnesota-based firm said.

The San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl announced its agreements for the next four-year bowl term (2010-2013). The Western Athletic Conference will receive a guaranteed spot in the 2011 and 2012 games and will be a backup in 2010 and 2013 should Navy and Army not be bowl eligible in those respective years. The agreement coupled with the announcement earlier this month that the WAC would receive bids to the Emerald Bowl in 2010 and 2013, gives the conference four guaranteed bowl slots through the 2013 season.

The University of Maryland would consider eliminating sports teams if necessary to safeguard its athletic program's economic health, an internal report says.

College football officials are cracking down on flagrant fouls, particularly helmet-to-helmet contact, as a result of a new NCAA rule which mandates a post-game video review by conference officials after a dangerous foul is committed.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which dropped eight varsity sports last spring amid budget pressures, has reinstated six of them as less-expensive club sports: alpine skiing, golf, men's gymnastics, women's gymnastics, men's ice hockey, and pistol shooting, according to The Tech.

Yankee Stadium will host a bowl game between schools from the Big East and Big 12 conferences starting next season, New York City’s first postseason college football contest in 48 years.

Friday night, St. Thomas Aquinas will walk onto the field at Lockhart Stadium to play South Carolina Byrnes. The Raiders will be wearing uniforms by Nike. The game will be broadcast on ESPN. Both teams will likely be drinking Gatorade and a few fans will be watching from premium-priced box seats.

Binghamton's athletic director Joel Thirer resigned Wednesday following the dismissal of six basketball players last week.

Football fans across Texas, Florida and Kentucky will now be able to watch the 2009 Sun Belt Network Football Package as the league office announced additional affiliates.

Forget Atlanta or going back to campus. The annual Georgia-Florida football game is staying in Jacksonville.

Dish Network will move ESPNU from its Classic Gold 250 package to its Classic Bronze 100 package, giving ESPN’s college network access to more subscribers, but ESPN said the move is unrelated to its pending lawsuit against the satellite-TV operator, reports Todd Spangler of Multichannel News.

The new Yankee Stadium will be the site of the Yankee Bowl, an NCAA postseason bowl game that will likely pit the No. 4 team from the Big East Conference against the No. 7 team from the Big 12 Conference, Dick Weiss of the New York Daily News reports.

WVLT, Gray Television’s CBS affiliate in Knoxville, TN, is going on the offensive by emphasizing its sports programming, Price Colman of TVNewsCheck reports.

Texas Tech head football coach Mike Leach is no fan of social-networking service Twitter, as Mike Penner of the Los Angeles Times reports that he banned tweeting by his players and suspended offensive lineman Brandon Carter indefinitely.

High school sports Website GrandStadium.TV reached deals with Sunflower Broadcasting’s KWCH Wichita, Cowles’ KHQ Spokane, and Hubbard Broadcasting’s KSTC Minneapolis to feature games from the stations’ markets online, Michael Malone of Broadcasting & Cable reports.

Cablevision Systems’ new MSG Varsity high school network also has a companion Website, but only the cable operator’s broadband subscribers can access it, paidContent reports.