Looking to rebound after losing the Bowl Championship Series, Fox Sports and the Pac-10 Conference have reached a one-year agreement for Fox to broadcast the inaugural Pac-12 Football Championship Game.

The game is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, December 3, 2011 at the home stadium of the team with the best conference record, with kickoff planned at 3:30 p.m. ET. Read more

With the playoff teams decided, the NFL has released the schedule for Wild Card Weekend and for the Divisional Playoffs:

NFL Wild Card Weekend

Saturday, Jan. 8:

NBC: New Orleans at Seattle: 4:3o p.m. (ET) (Tom Hammond & Mike Mayock)

NBC: NY Jets at Indianapolis: 8:00 p.m. (ET) (Al Michaels & Cris Collinsworth) Read more

John Rooney, the younger brother of English star Wayne, is entering the 2011 Major League Soccer SuperDraft

The English media unfairly criticizes MLS for its level of play, but Rooney sounds excited.

‘I’ve been watching the league for a few years now and it’s getting better and better every year,” he told the Daily Mail. “The lifestyle and the football there is great. I thoroughly enjoyed it (on trial) and I wanted to get back over there. There were a few teams sniffing around (in England) but I wanted to change my career.’

Although Rooney isn’t a star, he’s a big name and another excellent get for the growing league that features Landon Donovan, David Beckham, Thierry Henry, Rafa Marquez, and other famous names.

Here’s hoping he can stay in the headlines for the right reasons.

ESPN anchor Will Selva has been suspended indefinitely for using a portion of Kevin Ding‘s column on ESPNNews according to AOL Fanhouse.

The Orange County Register reporter first made folks aware of the situation on his blog late Tuesday evening.

Below are statements from Selva and ESPN vice president of communications Josh Krulewitz. Read more

Your money shot:

Commissioner Goodell also determined that Favre was not candid in several respects during the investigation, resulting in a longer review and additional negative public attention for Favre, Sterger, and the NFL. The commissioner notified Favre that he has been fined $50,000 for his failure to cooperate with the investigation in a forthcoming manner. Commissioner Goodell stated to Favre that if he had found a violation of the league’s workplace conduct policies, he would have imposed a substantially higher level of discipline.

The entire statement is after the jump. Read more

“I think it needs to continue to be a reactionary sport for me,” Aaron Rodgers said Wednesday in a conference call. “I trust my instincts when I’m on the field and I trust my ability to react to the things I see. I’m a guy who has made some plays outside the pocket. I’ve been a guy who slides 95 percent of the time and I’m going to continue to be a guy who slides 95 percent of the time.”

The media (and everyone else) can talk all we want about concussions, but nothing will change until the incentives do. if you create a culture where guys would kill themselves to win, sometimes it’s going to happen. Maybe don’t go to an 18-game schedule?

The final numbers are in from Nielsen, and the “Sunday Night Football” matchup between the Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots drew 24.2 million viewers. Not surprisingly it was the top program on Sunday night in total viewers and all the key demographics.

It was the 10th “SNF” game to surpass 20 million viewers this season, and the fifth most-watched “SNF” game of all time.

Not surprisingly, the top markets were Milwaukee and Boston, where the game drew over a 40 rating/60 share.

Cris Collinsworth‘s new website, FootballPros.com, will move to NBCSports.com as part of a partnership with the Sunday Night Football analyst.

Collinsworth will provide regular columns and video posts for NBCSports.com and his website, which launched in July, will move to the NBCSports.com platform in the first quarter of 2011.

“NBCSports.com is fast becoming the online destination for more and more NFL fans,” said Rick Cordella, vice president and general manager, NBC Sports Digital. “Adding Cris Collinsworth, the leading analytical mind among NFL commentators, and his FootballPros.com site complements our successful NBC Sports Talk strategy and helps to satisfy our growing fanbase.” Read more

Donna Orender wants out of women’s basketball.

The WNBA commissioner, who took over in April ’05, will depart at the end of the year, Sports Business Journal‘s John Lombardo reports.

“In a six-year time frame we made a lot of progress and based on that feeling, the time was right for me to go and do different things,” Orender said.

NBA Senior VP/Team Marketing & Business Operations Chris Granger will run the league on an interim basis while David Stern try to find someone to fill the position.

Next Thursday, the 22 members of FIFA’s executive committee will vote to award the locations of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Qatar, the tiny, oil-rich nation, continues to figure strongly in the ’22 process, despite obvious drawbacks to its bid. The nation has received some extremely positive press, like this story in the Guardian.

An excerpt: “Liberated from the hassle of constantly changing hotel rooms and draining cross country travel, those attending a largely Doha-centric tournament featuring all 12 stadiums within close proximity could attend three matches a day.”

That’s an incredibly sunny way of putting the fact that hundreds of thousands of visitors will be crammed into one small city, inviting disaster. The rest of the article is filled with similar positive rhetoric, glossing over the bid’s defaults.

As SI.com’s Grant Wahl points out, maybe Louise Taylor shouldn’t have spent time in Qatar on the country’s dime. Journalistic ethics, anyone?

The commentors on the Guardian story expect more as well.

Read more