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After bidding from Turner Sports, Fox and ESPN, the NHL decided to stay with Comcast in return for a 10 year, $1.9 billion deal, with most of that coming from Versus.  Comcast no doubt was emboldened to outbid ESPN in part because it sees the NHL as the foundation of a new sports channel it is attempting to build at Versus, with the help of NBC Sports, that will rival ESPN.  Of course, that's a huge and very expensive uphill battle.  The outline of that battle could take place very soon - in six weeks the International Olympic Committee will take bids on the next two to four Olympics, something that NBC has owned since 2000.  Adding interest to the bidding will be Comcast's response to the loss of $233 million by NBC on the Vancouver Games.  Will they still feel the need to keep the Games at almost any cost, as a platform for Versus (soon to get yet another name, "NBC Sports Channel" perhaps) and to keep it out of the hands of ESPN, or will the Comcast decide to only play if the numbers work and they are assured to make money, in which case the Games will be shown on the ESPN family of networks?  Stay tuned - it will be an interesting spring.

The reasons for the increase are varied but there is no doubt that having all five of the largest TV markets in the playoffs for the first time since 1990.  Again, thank you to the Knicks, as the Lakers, Bulls, Sixers and Mavericks have been fairly regular participants in the years since then.  The ratings bonanza should mean substantial revenue gains for the television partners, but should only mean additional headaches for the NBA.  The jump in playoff viewership follows a rise in regular season TV ratings and will only further complicate the already delicate negotiations with the players' union for a new collective bargaining agreement.

The NBA maintains that it is losing some $300 million a year despite rising attendance, merchandise sales and now record TV ratings, and wants a 30% cut in players' salaries.  The union wants to see the books, to verify the claimed losses, something David Stern is strongly, and suspiciously if you're a player or someone who hopes there is no lockout, resisting.

So, back to the action on the court.  The networks have to be hoping that the banged up Knicks can finally learn how to close out a game now that the series moves to the Garden.  With the Lakers and Spurs having tied up their series and Miami and the Bulls firmly in control of theirs, the TV execs are still smiling over the ratings yet to come.  Now, I'm not big on NBA predictions, since I don't follow the league that closely. So, if you want any help with your, um, entertainment, check out NBA predictions by BetUS.

NCAA tournament thrives with four networks, ratings best since 2005, although championship game was down from last year's big ratings win (NYT)

Analysis of the decisions in the two suits brought by the different(indicted or not) groups of Duke lacrosse players (Sports Law)

Welcome to the international growth of sports talk radio: Israel Sports Radio (Sports Marketing & PR)

Is contraction back on baseball's agenda and are the Tampa Bay Rays the target? (Forbes)

New York area team chapters of Professional Hockey Writers Association refusing to vote on end of season awards in support of Islander blogger-member whose credentials were pulled (Columbus Dispatch)

Real Salt Lake becomes first MLS team to make finals of CONCACAF Champions League; winner of tourney gets spot in Club World Cup (SI.com)

Will Bud Selig reject the Dodgers multi-Billion dollar deal with Fox, which would help settle the divorce proceedings, just to force Frank McCourt to sell the team (LAT)

control - by suspending him for three games NEXT season.  We wouldn't want to interfere too much with the TV product that CBS paid billions for now would we?

On the other hand, we have Butler, a supposed mid-major who has had players represented on the Academic All-American team in each of the last four years.  The Bulldogs are members of the Horizon Conference, a league without a regular national TV contract and composed of schools that do not play Division I football. There has not been a hint of scandal in Butler's past.  Who do you think NCAA President Mark Emmert is secretly rooting for?

Major college athletics is supposed to be about the experience of a student-athlete, with an emphasis on the first part of that hyphenated word.  Again, the final game is instructive.  While admittedly only a crude measure, the Academic Progress Rate is a standard established by the NCAA to measure schools and administer penalties for failure to encourage sufficient academic progress among their athletes.  An APR of 925 is the minimum needed to avoid penalties, which translates into a roughly fifty percent graduation rate; not a particularly tough standard, but the NCAA never sets the bar too high.  What about our finalists: UConn, 930, barely over the edge; Butler, 1000, a perfect score, enough said.

The last couple of weeks have not been good ones for the image protectors at the NCAA.  We have seen pay for play scandals at both Auburn and Oregon, the participants in last year's BCS National Championship.  We have the Jim Tressel saga at perennial power Ohio State, where the head coach not only failed to notify his superiors about violations but actively engaged in covering them up by alerting quarterback Terrell Pryor's "mentor" about them, presumably so he could help the cover up.  Of course, there is Tennessee with its twin scandals in men's basketball and football, that have cost basketball coach Bruce Pearl his job, but not until the Vols exited the tournament, and will result in penalties for both programs that have yet to be determined.  So far, the reaction of the NCAA to the play for pay revelations coming out of Auburn and Oregon is mostly silence.  Won't it be fun if both BCS National Championship Game participants are placed on probation and, heaven forbid, forced to forfeit games from the 2010 season.  Oh, and I almost forgot about that tawdry Fiesta Bowl saga which is outside the NCAA's control.

What is going on in collegiate athletics can be traced to one place: NCAA headquarters.  The punishment being meted out by the NCAA when it manages to catch rules violators is so disproportionally light in connection to the potential rewards that there is no incentive to comply.  First, the chances of actually getting caught aren't too great because the NCAA has a small enforcement staff,  and if you do, a few games suspension for a coach or a player is hardly a penalty to be concerned with  when the potential payoff is millions of dollars.  The incentive for the institution is just as great.  Winning football and basketball programs generate millions of dollars that flow back to the institutions.  Granted, the immediate dollars the athletic departments generate go to operate the departments, but winning programs create happy alumni who donate more. They also generate favorable publicity for the school and that generates more interest in the school and more applications for admissions.  Set against that backdrop, why should a coach comply with the rules he thinks his conference rivals are not obeying?

It's time the NCAA took one of two steps to clean up college athletics.  One, and the less drastic of my two suggestions, is to bring back the death penalty.  Although it remains on the books, it has not been administered since it was given to SMU.  It would seem that the NCAA is now too afraid of the TV networks to hand out the three most meaningful penalties in its arsenal: exclusion from the post-season, exclusion from TV appearances and the death penalty.  If you wondering when might be and appropriate time to hand down a death penalty see Auburn, Tennessee, Oregon and Ohio State. UConn probably deserves to be excluded from TV and the tournament for two to three years and Calhoun, the only coach I know whose recruiting was so dirty it inspired a rules change, should be issued a "show cause" order, i.e. demonstrate to the NCAA why he should be allowed to coach. (The reason that D-I schools now play exhibition games against lower division schools and not AAU teams is Jim Calhoun).

The other solution for this mess is just to do away with scholarships altogether.  Do you see these kind of scandals in the Ivy League or the Patriot League (okay, some schools in the Patriot League give out scholarships, but still...).  You don't see these problems in D-III either.  Would some of the players we see now not be able to attend college? Sure, but tell me, does everyone on Auburn's football team or UConn's basketball team really belong in college in the first place?  If the NBA and the NFL want minor leagues, let them pay for them like Major League Baseball does.  The NBA already has the NBDL - start using it for the players who don't really belong in college.  The system we have now prostitutes higher education and demeans the very institutions that participate in it. It's not in the best interest of the institution and it's not in the best interest of most of the athletes to be placed in a situation where the athlete does not really want to be and is unlikely to be academically successful.  If there were no athletic scholarships, then the athletes who do participate are students who we are more likely to feel assured want to be students and not stopping at a way station on the way to a pro tryout in order to fulfill some mandatory wait time.  

Even if the NCAA is not up to either of these ideas it must take a good hard luck at itself.  It is at crossroads and the very nature of college sports is at risk.  The business model has been very successful but the public may not want to buy in much longer if game stories continue to be crowded out by scandal stories.  As for tonight, well, Go  Bulldogs.