One upon a time (actually, as recently as last year) nearly every meaningful game of baseball's last day was aired live on ESPN or ESPN2. If the Phillies needed a win to clinch the NL East, it was on. If the Rockies needed a win to force a tie for the Wild Card, it was on.

Those days are gone. Thanks to the intricacies of Major League Baseball's broadcasting deals, ESPN no longer has the rights to broadcast or pick up feeds of games with pennant-race implications. So yesterday, baseball fans were at the mercy of the Internet or SportsCenter to find out what was happening outside their own markets.

Even today's one-game playoff between the Padres and Rockies isn't available on television outside those teams' home markets. Congratulations, baseball! You've negotiated deals that result in LESS baseball being shown on television! Way to go!

I know MLB officials will say that all out-of-market games are available on MLB.TV. And as a subscriber to that service who uses it to catch my hometown Phillies, I agree that it's a fantastic invention. But it's not a solution in all cases.

Consider my experience on Sunday. We headed up to the Jersey Shore for one last weekend of summer, but found that the broadcast of the Phillies-Nationals game was not carried by the local cable provider. (Thanks, Comcast.) I would have tried to get the feed using MLB.TV on my laptop but because I live in Maryland, any game involving the Nationals would be blacked out for me. We were forced to listen to the game on the radio.

Of course, ESPN no longer has the rights to any postseason baseball now, either. TBS now has the rights to the Divisional Series and the NLCS. Fox, once again, will show the ALCS and World Series.

And tonight? ESPN will have Monday Night Football, while ESPN2 broadcast. ... billiards.

- Tim Lemke

UPDATE (1:30 p.m.): Today's one-game playoff between the Rockies and Padres at Coors Field will be broadcast on TBS. Of course, you wouldn't know it by looking at TBS's Web site, which still indicates the network will be showing episodes of Friends and Family Guy.

UPDATE II: It also just came to my attention that TBS's broadcasts of the Division Series and NLCS won't be in high-definition for many people, as not all cable providers carry TBS HD. If you get DirecTV and have the high-definition package, you're set. Comcast Digital Cable customers in Montgomery County, Prince George's County, the District and Northern Virginia can watch TBS HD on Channel 232. Comcast Digital Cable customers in Frederick and the Sharpsburg-Keedysville area can get the station on channel 780. Cox customers in Northern Virginia and customers of RCN do not yet have access to TBS HD.

Now that baseball's playoff field is set, I figured it's a good time to analyze which teams got the most out of the money they spent on players. It's common to assume that a high payroll leads to wins, but that's not always the case, as we will see.

Here's a ranking of teams, based on cost per win; playoff teams in bold. (Thanks to USA Today's salary database for payroll info.)

Florida Marlins: $429,676
Washington Nationals: $511,606
Pittsburgh Pirates: $566,733
Arizona Diamondbacks: $578,528
Colorado Rockies: $604,711
Cleveland Indians: $642,430
San Diego Padres: $652,928
Milwaukee Brewers: $855,259
Minnesota Twins: $904,297
Texas Rangers: $910,915
Cincinnati Reds: $957,014
Kansas City Royals: $972,702
Toronto Blue Jays: $987,263
Philadelphia Phillies: $1,004,811
Atlanta Braves: $1,039,177
Oakland Athletics: $1,044,301
Detroit Tigers: $1,081,595
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: $1,116,248
St. Louis Cardinals: $1,157,523
Chicago Cubs: $1,172,592
Houston Astros: $1,202,178
Seattle Mariners: $1,209,782
San Francisco Giants: $1,270,690
New York Mets: $1,309,451
Los Angeles Dodgers: $1,322,616
Baltimore Orioles: $1,355,867
Boston Red Sox: $1,489,856
Chicago White Sox: $1,509,331
New York Yankees: $2,017,437

Notice that of the top eight teams, three are playoff teams and two just missed out on berths. (The other three have payrolls so low that they'd top these rankings no matter what.)

- Tim Lemke

The Busch Series is no more.

NASCAR announced today that it signed a new deal to make Nationwide Insurance the title sponsor of its No. 2 racing series beginning in 2008.

The new deal ends NASCAR's relationship with Busch, which first signed on as a sponsor 26 years ago. It also makes Nationwide the official auto, home and life insurance provider of NASCAR.

NASCAR officials declined to reveal the financial terms of the deal, and Nationwide refused to comment on how much it charges a NASCAR driver in premium.

In all seriousness, the new deal is reported to be worth about $10 million over seven years. And Nationwide said it had no qualms about sponsoring a sport that routinely features cars crashing into each other.

"We looked long and hard at this ... NASCAR really demonstrated to us a commitment to safety," Nationwide Chief Marketing Officer James Lyski said.

For Nationwide, this is it second big sponsorship in the world of sports. The company is also the title sponsor of the Nationwide Tour, PGA Tour's #2 circuit.

NASCAR officials now must work to avoid the sponsorship overlap fiasco that plagued the Nextel Cup earlier this year. You may recall that NASCAR got locked into a legal battle with AT&T that stemmed largely from the racing series decision to make a Sprint, a competing phone company, its title sponsor in 2008. All sides settled in that case (AT&T can stay as a team sponsor through 2008), but it got unnecessarily ugly. In the case of Nationwide, other insurance companies -- GEICO in particular -- can remain as team sponsors for two years and can then pursue sponsorships with the Craftsman Truck Series or Sprint Cup.

-- Tim Lemke

Sports Business Journal this week reported on what many of us have surmised: that the Nationals' new ballpark might go through 2008 without a major naming rights partner. The article, written by former Times staffer Eric Fisher, quotes principal owner Mark Lerner as saying the team would be willing to wait a year in order to get a good deal in place.

"There's no panic, but that's something we certainly may wait on until '09," Lerner said. "These are very complicated deals that take a lot of time to pull together. On a practical level, we're getting awfully late in the game where we wouldn't have enough time to order and install the signage in time for Opening Day. We'll get there. The important thing is to have the right deal instead of the quick deal."

I checked with team officials today, who told me that 2008 has not been eliminated as a possibility. And it's certainly possible that a deal could be struck in time for Opening Day. But in the last few months, it was clear that the team appeared open to the idea of waiting a year, even if only for practical reasons.

At a media roundtable last month, Nationals President Stan Kasten said the team officials were "hopeful" they could get a deal in place by Opening Day, but stopped short of promising the deal would be done. For most of this year, the team has referred to the new ballpark as "Nationals Park," and that would likely remain the moniker through 2008 if a naming rights deal can't be struck.

Most industry experts I've spoken to say the Nationals could land a deal worth upwards of $10 million per year for Nationals Park, which would place them second in baseball behind Citibank's 20-year, $400 million pact for the Mets new stadium. Those same industry experts said waiting a year to finalize a naming rights deal might actually be helpful to the team. A successful year of baseball in the new ballpark could make the team an even more attractive partner, and it would also allow the team to negotiate a deal involving not just signage, but the full integration of a brand into the ballpark. (For instance, a deal with a technology firm might involve providing free wi-fi or computer kiosks in the ballpark, or a deal involving a bank might include a financial services center and ATMs.)

The Nationals may need to be cautious, however, in ensuring that fans don't get too attached to "Nationals Park." Kurt Hunzeker, a former editor of Team Marketing Report and contributor to Bizofbaseball.com, recently wrote that so-called "secondary" naming rights deals are generally not as valuable as the naming rights for brand-new stadiums in their first year. He suggests that fans tend to grow attached to the original names of stadiums, often rebelling against new corporate names or simply continuing to refer to the original name even after it's changed. (For instance, Ameriquest Field in Arlington is still referred to as The Ballpark at Arlington by many fans, while Chase Field in Arizona will always be Bank One Ballpark to many Diamondbacks devotees.)

"The first name will be the first answer when asked, where does 'insert-team-name-here' play?," Hunzeker writes.

The House Subcommittee on Domestic Policy is holding a hearing at 2 p.m. to discuss "Professional Sports Stadiums: Do They Divert Public Funds From Critical Public Infrastructure?" Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Ohio Democrat, is chairman of the committee. This is a second hearing on the topic of sports stadiums. The first addressed whether stadiums provide economic benefits to the cities that build them.

I'll be checking in periodically on the live Web cast of the hearing and will blog my thoughts later. I do not expect much in the way of breaking news from the hearing, but I've been told a few of the panelists are fun to watch.

Here's a list of the panelists:

Panel I
- Mr. Eric Solomon, Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, Department of Treasury
- Mr. Arthur J. Rolnick, Senior Vice President and Research Director, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

Panel II
- Professor Judith Grant Long, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
- Professor David P. Hale, Director, Aging Infrastructure Systems Center of Excellence, University of Alabama
- Ms. Bettina Damiani, Director, Good Jobs New York
- Dr. Steven Maguire, Specialist in Public Finance, Congressional Research Service

Now this is just embarrassing. Apparently, the Dallas Cowboys recently tried to purchase the Internet domain name cowboys.com, but botched the purchase when they failed to realize how expensive the domain would be.

The Cowboys were looking to buy the domain name from a seller of Western clothing and other items, and were the only bidder a recent live auction. The winning bid came in at $275,000. But the team thought that it was bidding only $275.

The domain name was eventually bought in a silent auction by Eric Rice, owner of bulk domain registrar Domainsformedia.com for $370,000. Eric is apparently a Maryland native, so I shot him an email inquiring whether he's a devious Redskins fan looking to put the screws to a division rival. Still waiting word on that possible conspiracy theory.

- Tim Lemke

UPDATE (2:11 p.m.)

I heard back from Eric, and he says the following:

"No ulterior motive, I have been looking at a very similar domain with a great country and western site that makes good money. My offers on that never panned out, so I saw this one as the way to go.

I don't even watch football or much sports."

The NFL today announced it will streamline its draft process, moving round three to the draft's second day and reducing the amount of time between picks. The draft will also start at 3 p.m. on the first day instead of noon.

It's clear from the NFL's changes that it wants to place a greater importance on the first two rounds and possibly package them better for television. The total possible amount of live draft coverage on the first day, a Saturday, has been reduced from 850 minutes (about 14 hours) to 510 minutes, (about 8 1/2 hours.) That makes it a little more palatable for those fans who want to see their team pick but don't want to waste an entire day. The 3 p.m. start time is also more attractive for television, as more people tend to tune in later in the day. What's more, the later start time will give ESPN and the NFL Network nearly a full day to report and speculate on what teams will do. (ESPN, after all, stands for Everyone Speculates on Possible News.)

Of course, this later start time also makes reporting on the draft a little trickier, deadline-wise. But knowing the NFL, the comfort of reporters was not a number one priority.

- Tim Lemke

Ok, Goodyear, try and top this.

DirecTV has announced that it will fly a special blimp equipped with a 70 x 30-foot LED video board above Fenway Park for Game 1 of the World Series tonight.

The blimp, dubbed the DirecTV HD Starship, will take high-definition aerial shots for Fox's broadcast of the game, while displaying advertisements and messaging on the massive video board. The video board is the largest-ever made for a blimp.

DirecTV said it will use the blimp and sign to promote its high-definition programming.

"We’ve taken the HD high ground from the competition, now we’ve commandeered the airspace above to let consumers know who has best and most HD programming,” said Jon Gieselman, senior vice president of advertising and public relations at DirecTV. “And who better to send that message to than sports fans who have been driving the growth of HD?"

This is pretty cool, but I'm anxiously awaiting the new MetLife blimp featuring a 10,000-foot, high-definition image of Snoopy.

Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus has an interesting item today in which he suggests that cities that attract a large number of tourists generally have better, more consistent attendance than cities that don't.

He argues that a city like Detroit, which does not have a large tourism industry, will see a larger dropoff in attendance when the Tigers aren't playing well, while cities like Chicago, New York and Los Angeles are immune to big fluctuations based on team performance. His theory is that business travelers and other tourists will attend a game simply because they are in town and aren't influenced by how well the team is playing.

Silver performed some mathematical calculations and determined that the amount of money spent on hotels and restaurants (aka dollars from tourists) is actually a better indicator of attendance than the size of the market.

So what does this mean for the Nationals?

Washington ranks fifth among Major League cities in "accommodation and food sales," so the Nationals should, according to Silver, draw reasonably well year after year even if the team isn't winning.

Comcast SportsNet will dedicate much of this week to covering the start of the Wizards season, broadcasting the team's first three games and airing a one-on-one interview with star guard Gilbert Arenas.

"Wizards Tip-off Week" will feature all three of the week's games in high-definition, plus three hours of coverage leading up to the home opener on Saturday. New host Ronnie Thompson will join Chris Miller for interviews, special guests and other analysis.

The interview with Arenas was conducted by Phil Chenier and will air tonight after the Wizards-Pacers game. Coverage of the game will start tonight at 6:30 p.m.

Also this week, Chick Hernandez will have a five-part series looking at Caron Butler's childhood, including interviews conducted in Butler's hometown of Racine, Wis. CSN will also broadcast features on rookies Nick Young and Dominic McGuire, as well as a sit-down interview with coach Eddie Jordan.