Southwest Airlines customers will soon be able to watch their favorite baseball team 30,000 feet in the air.

Row 44 Inc., Southwest’s in-flight broadband Internet provider, signed a deal with Major League Baseball that will allow the airline giant to stream audio and video broadcasts to passengers’ Wi-Fi enabled devices.

“Major League Baseball is such a part of the fabric of America — and has always been more than a professional sports organization,” said Howard Lefkowitz, Row 44′s chief commercial officer. “It is an honor that they’ve chosen to undertake this innovation with Row 44 — becoming the first sports league to offer in-flight live streaming video of its games. This partnership is the first in a series that underscore Row 44′s commitment to creating a unique broadband entertainment experience for our airline partners and their customers.”

Southwest is slated to have their entire fleet wired by 2013.

Former NFL veteran Hugh Douglas is joining ESPN as a studio analyst.

The former NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year will provide analysis on SportsCenter, NFL Live, First Take and ESPNEWS.

Douglas makes his ESPN debut Monday, including an appearance on NFL Live at 4 p.m. ET.

“I am very excited about becoming a part of the ESPN family,” Douglas said. “I plan to approach my role with ESPN with the same tenacity and commitment that I had during my 10-year NFL career.”

Following his retirement in 2004, Douglas worked as a sports radio personality on Philadelphia’s WIP 610 Radio and served as an on-air reporter for Comcast SportsNet.

If you’re like me, you need to be given a damn good reason to take an interest in NASCAR. Well, how about one million reasons? For the second year in a row, DirecTV is running its NASCAR Head2Head Knockout fantasy racing game on ESPN.com, which pits 32 drivers against each other in a four-week contest to determine which one is still standing when the checkered flag drops. And if your bracket is perfect, it could be worth $1 million. If it’s not perfect — but simply better than everyone else’s — you’ll win a $45,000 truck.

Starting at Pocono and continuing through the three races at Watkins Glen, Michigan and Bristol, you’ll have a chance to pick a winner in 29 driver matchups. In week one, each correct answer in the 16 matchups will be worth 20 points with the eight potential wins in week 2 worth 40 points apiece. Then, the wins in week three will add 80 points per to your total. In the final week, you’ll rank your final four drivers according to order of finish, and if your top one comes out ahead, you’ll get 160 points. That means over the four weeks, the maximum number of points you could receive is 1,120.

If you collected that many points there’s a very good chance you’d be the champion with the first prize a full size truck valued at $45,000 from on the manufacturer of the winning driver of race four.

You could also be in line for the Perfect Bracket Prize, which would be worth up to $1 million. To be “perfect” you would not only need to nail a perfect score, but also predict the correct finishing position order for each of those final four drivers in the race at Bristol.

The Walt Disney Resort in Orlando will no longer serve as the home for “ESPN The Weekeend.”

Walt Disney World sports media director Darrell Fry made the announcement on the Disney Parks blog:

“In order to focus our efforts on ESPN’s growing year-round presence at Walt Disney World Resort, we have decided to no longer host ESPN The Weekend.

As you may know, the event was first created in 2004 in support of ESPN’s 25th anniversary and, along with ESPN Club, served as ESPN’s first significant presence here. While the event has continued for seven more successful years, our relationship with ESPN has evolved significantly and positively. This has resulted in new branding for the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, new opportunities for millions of athletes, coaches and fans, and hundreds of hours of ESPN programming, making our guests part of the show. In addition, the sports complex has become home to the ESPN Innovation Lab, which is the official development hub for ESPN’s 3D network.

Moving forward, our focus will be on creating events like the new ESPN RISE Girls Showcase and the ESPN RISE Games, which provide a stage for tens of thousands of athletes from around the country, and providing opportunities for guests to be part of events they’ve only before watched on television, such as the Home Depot College Football Awards and the Old Spice Classic.”

 

For the third straight year, NBC will air an hour-long WrestleMania special.

WrestleMania: The World Premiere airs Saturday, Aug. 13 at 9 p.m. ET, and feature highlights from WrestleMania XXVII this past April.

The highly anticipated pay-per-view event in front of 71,617 fans at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta marked the WrestleMania return of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and featured a main event between John Cena and The Miz for the WWE Championship.

Major media companies relish the opportunity to promote themselves. Why else would Matt Lauer play himself in the USA series “White Collar”? Sporting events are particularly ripe for cross-promotion, with the broadcast networks paying big bucks for sporting rights. If there is an opportunity for free promotion, they take it.

The latest player is Fox News Channel, which has Shepard Smith anchoring from Phoenix, Arizona, the site of tonight’s Major League Baseball All Star Game (to be broadcast on Fox, natch).

Smith interviewed the Fox broadcast team in advance of the game, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver:

Read more

Baylor football fans will be glued to Weather.com on the 4th of July as the temperature in Waco, Texas will determine the price of season tickets for the 2011-12 season:

“The high temperature in Waco on July 4th, as recorded by the National Weather Service, will be the price point for all season football tickets sold outside of the premium seating sections at Floyd Casey Stadium from July 5-10. The average high temperature in Waco on Independence Day is 95 degrees with a record high of 101 recorded in 1990.

“While season ticket sales have been brisk, we believe this Independence Day promotion will be attractive to many of our fans who have not yet purchased tickets,” said Baylor’s Executive Associate A.D./External Affairs Nick Joos. “Even if Waco were to record a new high for the 4th, fans would be looking at saving nearly 30 percent off the cost of our Super Fan ticket. Of course, if we were to get a break from the hot weather we’ve had the last month, that discount would give fans an even lower price point at which to purchase season tickets.”

As of Friday night, the National Weather Service is projecting a high of 104 on Monday. Here’s to a low pressure system coming through Texas.

[H/T Kegs 'N Eggs]

Joe Rogan is returning to his roots.

The UFC color commentator will host the relaunch of NBC’s Fear Factor.

Rogan hosted the show during its first run from 2001 to 2006. NBC ordered eight episodes and production begins in August. If the ratings are strong, additional episodes could be ordered.

Eight new episodes of the show will be produced beginning next month and the series is expected to debut on NBC in September.

The show’s format will remain mostly the same except contestants will compete in pairs rather than as individuals.

ESPN is going “all-in” for the 2011 World Series of Poker.

From July 14-19, the network will offer daily coverage of the WSOP main event, including ‘live’ unedited hole cards on a 30-minute delay and more than 34 additional hours of coverage in high definition on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN3.com from the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Every hand will be shown unedited and hole cards will be available post-flop. Coverage will shift between two feature tables approximately every 30 minutes. All “all-in” and “call” situations will be shown at both tables. Read more

And here comes the fallout from George Dohrmann‘s Sports Illustrated story.

ESPN is looking into Mel Kiper’s relationship with NFL agent Gary Wichard as described by Josh Luchs in this week’s SI cover story on agent tampering in college football.

In the article, Luchs claims Kiper worked with Wichard in order to persuade potential clients by using his NFL draft rankings as incentive for players to sign.

(No wonder those draft ranking arguments with Todd McShay are always so heated).

“Conversations with players, which are occasionally facilitated by agents, are a valuable way to get to know the players,” Kiper responded in a statement. “These conversations have never compromised my integrity, and my 32-year record supports that.”

Luchs stood by his claim of Kiper’s involvement on Mike and Mike in the Morning on Wednesday.

“What Mel did do in these situations, whether he realizes it or not, he allowed himself to be used in the recruiting process,” Luchs said.

This will likely be the first of many folks to publicly deny the allegations described in Dohrmann’s story.

Stay tuned.