A pair of sports TV deals making news today. While the "Worldwide Leader in Sports" says goodbye to one of their many sports properties, another is staying put for the forseeable future.

First, ESPN/ABC Sports is keeping the Indianapolis 500 on its air for quite sometime. ESPN/ABC has signed a 6-year extension to continue airing the IRL's signature race of the year every Memorial Day Weekend until 2018. Although financial terms weren't revealed, the extension continues a partnership ABC has had airing the annual race since 1965. As part of the extension, ESPN3.com will video stream ABC's onboard cameras during the Indy 500 and the IndyCar Series starting next year. Additionally, ESPN/ABC will broadcast 4 additional IRL races along with the 500.

Second, in the first move since NBC Sports Group announced that VERSUS will change its name to NBC Sports Network starting January 2nd, 2012, the "Peacock" has announced a 3-year deal to broadcast Major League Soccer. Under terms of NBC's 3-year deal with MLS, the "Peacock" themselves won't broadcast that many games, but the bulk of the games will go to the new NBC Sports Network.

Under the new MLS/NBC deal, the "Peacock" themselves will ONLY broadcast 2 regular season MLS matches, 2 playoff matches and 2 others by the U.S. Men's Soccer team. The other 38 MLS regular season matches, 3 playoff matches and 2 other appearances by the U.S. Men's Soccer team will be carried exclusively on the new NBCSN, which you can find where VERSUS is now on DIRECTV 603.

The new MLS/NBC deal is also significant in the sense that the "Peacock" could make a legitimate bid at wrestling away ESPN/ABC's U.S. contract to carry the 2018 World Cup. ESPN/ABC has the U.S. contract to broadcast the 2014 World Cup in Brazil starting in June of that year.

MLS and USA games will still be on ESPN(2), this new deal replaces the one MLS had with Fox Soccer Channel.

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Git on back there.