The Rugby World Cup is well underway, and has about a month of games still to be played. The Rugby World Cup is not so popular in the United States, but it is considered the third most watched worldwide sporting event, after the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games. There are plenty of games being shown on American TV if don't mind paying, or for free if you can wait 72 hours. The deal that Fox Sports World has with the Rugby World Cup is that they can only show the games on a 72 hour delay. 

Pay-per-view schedule (DirecTV):

TV schedule (all games on Fox Sports World unless otherwise noted):

NBC to broadcast "Ice 2003" in December

October 25, 2003

NBC has created a made-for-TV winter sporting event for broadcast in December 2003. "Verizon Ice 2003" will be broadcast on NBC Saturday, December 13, and Sunday, December 14, from 4:30pm-6pm (Eastern Time) each day. Sports featured will be curling, luge, bobsled, and skeleton. The sports will be contested at different venues and countries around the world.

The Olympic city of Lake Placid, New York will host the television broadcast, as well as the bobsled and skeleton competitions. The luge will take place in Altenburg, Germany, and the curling will take place in the city of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.

Verizon is the premier corporate sponsor for the USA Bobsled and USA Skeleton teams.

October 25, 2003

The USOC and CSTV (College Sports Television) announced a partnership back in August 2003 to create a year-round show dedicated to showing USA Olympic hopefuls training for Athens, attempting to give more exposure to some of the Olympic sports that do not receive much television coverage in the United States. Some of the schedule has been released, and it is a disappointment that this is not all original programming or recent competition. For example, events from the Titan Games are being shown several times on the schedule. These events took place in February 2003 and were already broadcast on ESPN a few weeks after the events. However, the Sunkist International Wrestling Open takes place on October 23-25, 2003, and will still be fairly recent when shown in November.

Upcoming shows:

X Games "classics" on television

October 25, 2003

ESPN still occasionally shows X Games highlights, even during this lull between the (Summer) X Games and the Winter X Games, under the title "X Games Classix". Catch highlights from 2003's X Games IX in the package titled "Stomped" on Sunday, November 2 from 2pm-2:30pm on ESPN, which is followed by "Slammed" from 2:30pm-3pm on the same day (Pacific time). 

October 25, 2003

ESPN's "SportsCentury" show, a series that debuted near the end of 1999 with a set of biographies on the 100 greatest sports figures of the century, still is going strong and is shown on ESPN Classic on a regular basis. Hundreds of other sports figures outside of the top 100 have been profiled over the years in this series. Upcoming profiles on Olympians:

"Greatest Sports Legends" is another show that profiles important sports figures using classic interviews. These are older shows that were originally broadcast over ten years ago, but are still just as relevant and powerful today. Upcoming profiles on Olympians:

October 25, 2003