[Ed. note -- Promoted from FanPosts]

In their story A Comcast-NBC link-up would create potential rival to ESPN the Wall Street Journal details that the deal between Comcast and NBC Universal meets one of its top priorities of expanding the company's sports footprint:

Paired up with NBC, Comcast could get a bigger slice of a large sports TV market.

...

The expanded NBC Universal would combine both companies' rights to college football, hockey and golf. It would have NBC's rights to the Olympics in 2010 and 2012 and NFL games through 2013. A deal could also give NBC Sports access to cable subscription fees, which would put it in a better position to keep up with growing sports-rights costs

Considering that NBC has plenty of experience with sister networks and online streaming from hosting sporting events such as the 2008 Summer Olympics, this sounds like a good vehicle to cover multiple related events.

College-sports conferences, in particular, want deals that cover multiple outlets to air more of their events. ESPN has been most able to do so, for instance, putting one game on ABC and another on ESPN2.

"It really gives you a substantial array of networks to throw into a package," Lee H. Berke, a TV-sports consultant, says of a potential union of NBC Sports and Comcast's sports networks.

Since we already know that the Big 12 is mulling what to do about their television contract, whether that means creating a new network from scratch or joining a family of networks. With the ESPN family already stretched from the SEC deal, a separate entity that combines Comcast's Versus and other sports channels plus NBC sports may be just what the Big 12 is looking for in its future.