If you're sad about the end of the baseball season, you might cheered up by this.

Ah, yes, it's the sight of sod being laid at the Nationals' new ballpark. Real, honest to goodness, grass.

Mayor Adrian Fenty and the usual cast of smiling city officials will be on hand Nov. 13 for an official "unveiling" of the new turf. Until then, I might keep that Web cam open on my desk just to remind me that it's just five months until Opening Day.

I'm not an enormous soccer fan, but I have to admit a certain delight in following the Champions League, a hugely popular and remarkably intense tournament featuring the best teams from Europe. With many matches taking place this week, I pondered writing a story about the growing number of games available live on the Internet at places like ESPN360 and UEFA.com. I was operating on the theory that the availability of more matches online might actually pique the interest of casual American fans, who are less likely to pay big bucks for a special soccer television package like Setanta Sports or Fox Soccer Channel.

But, my reporting uncovered a lot of mixed information on the subject.

It's clear there is a market for streaming of live matches here in America. ESPN360 reported 3 million streams of the World Cup in 2006 and 500,000 streams for Champions League games earlier this spring. And for the 2007-08 Champions League tournament, ESPN360 will show three times as many games, so the number of streams should top 1 million.

"It's certainly growing," said John Zehr, ESPN's senior vice president of digital media production, of the popularity of Champions League games. "There are pockets of the country where European soccer has a pretty big following."

The network appears to be using the Champions League as highlighted programming as it seeks broader distribution of its new version of its video player, launched in September. (Currently, about 17 million people have access to the service and that will grow to 20 million by 2008, officials said.)

It's still unclear, though, who is tuning in to these online broadcasts. Zehr admitted the Champions League is "long tail" programming, meaning that it's highly appealing to a niche audience. He pointed out that die-hard Champions League fans who would prefer to watch games on big-screen televisions often can't in America because the games are played at 2:30 p.m. ET, smack dab in the middle of the workday. For those fans, a good online broadcast is the next best thing.

UEFA officials said they are specifically targeting the American audience for their online broadcasts at UEFA.com, because the sport can't get more popular in Europe.

"Our live online market is indeed in the USA and South America," said Andy Pattison, production manager for UEFA.com. "This does reflect the increased interest in soccer but also the saturation of the Champions League within Europe."

But Pattison also said the online games have been most popular in places where only the top games are available on television. (Turkish ex-pats are driving the most online traffic at the moment, he said, because UEFA.com is one of the few places fans can see games of top Turkish clubs Fenerbahçe and Besiktas.)

So is that the audience for online soccer? Die-hard fans who are stuck at the office and Turkish people who can't otherwise see their team's games?

I interviewed a number of European soccer fans who live in the U.S., and most said that they prefer to pay for a special satellite package or go to a bar to watch international soccer, if possible.

"The online games really don't impact us, because anyone who wants to get our games can get them on television," said Jim O'Donnell, president of the Washington, D.C. chapter of the North American Federation of Celtic Supporters Clubs. "I'm sure there are some football fans without an allegiance who might watch online, but I can't say what kind of effort they'd make."

Mike Kavanagh, president of Arsenal America, a club for American fans of Arsenal FC, said he knows a number of fans who were once uninterested in soccer but became huge supporters after watching online broadcasts of the World Cup last year.

"There were guys who couldn't have cared less about soccer, but they had ESPN360, and now they're into international football, which is fantastic," he said.

- Tim Lemke

ESPN announced today that it has hired two new investigative reporters, both with a history of breaking major stories relating to steroids in sports. The sports network said Mark Fainaru-Wada of the San Francisco Chronicle and T.J. Quinn of the New York Daily News will join its enterprise reporting unit and will be involved in developing long-form, investigative features.

Fainaru-Wada gained a reputation as one of the best investigative reporters in the country when he and Chronicle colleague Lance Williams broke the news the Barry Bonds admitted to a grand jury that he used steroids. Their reporting led to the publishing of a book "Game of Shadows" that further exposed the relationship between Bonds and other athletes to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO.)

Quinn, as part of the Daily News' investigative team broke several stories relating to BALCO and Major League Baseball's investigation into steroid use. He also wrote several stories about the use of HGH in baseball.

These are excellent hires for ESPN, which in recent months appears to be getting more serious about its role as the top dispenser of sports news and information. The network last month debuted a 60 Minutes-style news show featuring in-depth reports from its better reporters, including Jeremy Schaap and Washington Post alum Rachel Nichols. The launch of E:60 followed several key scoops, including a story by reporter Kelly Naqi featuring an undercover agent who knew of NFL star Michael Vick's involvement in dogfighting.

I have always been frustrated with ESPN's penchant for hiring people to comment on news developments, rather than report on them. (Of course, I say this as I am boldly commenting on a news story, rather than breaking it myself.)

But it does appear that ESPN is ramping up its enterprise and investigative units. And that is very good news for everyone.

- Tim Lemke

UPDATE (Thursday, 5:37 p.m.)

About 24 hours after ESPN announces that they've hired Fainaru-Wada, Barry Bonds gets indicted on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. And of course, it's Fainaru-Wada on ESPNews discussing the indictment this afternoon.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it's easy to imagine the following conversation taking place:

Fainaru-Wada: I have a great scoop for you. Pay me lots of money and I'll talk about it on your airwaves.
ESPN executive: What's the scoop?
Fainaru-Wada: Bonds is getting indicted. My price is ... $100 billion dollars!
ESPN exec: We can't afford that. But we'll pay you $200 more than Phil Bronstein's paying you, and we'll let you get ESPNU for free.
Fainaru-Wada: Can you kill Chris Berman for me?
ESPN: No. He's immortal. We might be able to make Kenny Mayne disappear. No promises.
Fainaru-Wada: Deal.

One could write about 14,000 words trying to describe the dispute between the NFL Network and cable operators that may leave fans scrambling for a way to watch some pretty compelling upcoming games. I tried to boil the whole issue down in less than 1,000 words, which you can read here.

At the core of the debate is the cable companies' decision to put the NFL Network on a special sports tier, rather than the expanded basic or digital tier that most fans subscribe to. The NFL sees the move as an attempt to marginalize the network, but the cable companies argue that they're simply looking for a way to offer the channel without passing on additional expenses to cable providers.

I spoke to some fans to try and get a sense of whether anyone would upgrade to a sports tier just to get the NFL Network, and found few who said they would. The fans reasoned that the network's eight games, while compelling, did not justify paying $5 a month or more. They also argued that the network's other programming was not all that different than NFL-related shows on ESPN and other networks.

"Any way you look at it, I'm not going to shell out extra money to Comcast or the NFL for one game (or even eight games), despite the potential implications," said Kenneth Levin, a Patriots fan and medical researcher living in Baltimore.

What's interesting is that while some fans said they would not upgrade to a sports tier on the grounds that the cable companies were in the wrong, most fans I spoke to said the NFL Network itself was simply not worth the money. Which, one could argue, validates the cable companies' argument that the NFL is asking to much in a license fee.

"I don't care for much of the day to day programming and their coverage of the games last season had poor production value," said Greg Zook, a Patriots fan living in Oregon, who watches the NFL Network on a basic tier offered by satellite provider DirecTV. "If I had to pay extra for the NFL games, I wouldn't do it. Maybe in a few years when they improve their product, I'd consider it."

Levin said that despite a less-than-favorable view of the cable industry, the NFL is on the wrong side of this dispute.

"I'd blame the NFL," he said. "The cable companies - as much as I don't like them because of how much they charge - I don't see how the NFL can charge them so much for what's essentially ESPNews with about 24 hours worth of games [per year.]"

The Federal Communications Commission last night tabled a measure that might have provided some relief for fans caught in the middle of the fight between the NFL Network and cable companies.

Citing a lack of support from commissioners, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin decided against presenting a proposal that called for mandatory arbitration to resolve disputes between cable companies and broadcasters.

Yes, it seems like arcane bureaucratic nonsense, but here's the relevant background for football fans:

The NFL Network is a 24-hour cable channel devoted entirely to pro football. The NFL owns the network, and wants to have it distributed to as many people as possible. It's available on basic tiers through satellite providers DirecTV and Dish Network, but several major cable companies, including Time Warner, Comcast and Cablevision, said they believe the NFL is asking too much in carriage fees. The companies have placed the network on a sports tier, which usually costs about $5 more per month for subscribers. In essence, this makes the network unavailable to millions of people who don't want to pay for the sports tier.

The battle between the network and the companies has heated up in recent months because the NFL Network now shows eight live games per year, including some key contests like the Cowboys-Packers game this Thursday and the Patriots' season-ending game against the Giants. In the NFL's view, these games are must-see events and justify moving the network off of a sports tier. Cable companies have disagreed, and said the network does not offer enough unique programming to justify the NFL's carriage fees.

The NFL Network's games will be broadcast over the air in the home markets of the teams involved, but many other fans will find themselves unable to see these games unless they pay their cable company extra for the network or switch providers.

Disputes like this between cable companies and broadcasters are very common. Martin, the FCC Chairman, sought to introduce the arbitration measure as a way of resolving these disputes. Essentially, the new rules would allow each side of a dispute to present their case and an independent third part would decide the course of action.

Officials from the NFL Network supported the Martin's arbitration proposal because it would have, at the very least, brought the cable companies to the negotiating table. NFL Network officials said they were getting frustrated because cable officials wouldn't even sit down and talk.

Martin's proposal could be resurrected, but looks dead for the time being. Thus, it does not appear like the NFL Network-cable situation is getting resolved anytime soon.

- Tim Lemke

For some rather funny commentary on the whole NFL Network/cable dispute, I recommend reading the comic strip Tank McNamara this week. Check out the strips beginning with Monday's.