When there is one sport far and away more popular than any other, its no surprise that everyone wants to get in on the action. Case in point, almost twice as many people tuned into watch a pre-season scrimmage NFL game on Sunday night than did to watch two of the most popular MLB teams play each other in a race to the playoffs. The newly formed United Football League (UFL) is hoping to cash in on some of those fans. The league consists of four teams and thirteen games (including playoffs) that will be broadcast in HD on Versus and HDNet starting on Saturday October 10th. While we'd rather see a new spring league formed, we can't ever get enough football so we'll be tuning in to check it out in the hopes that it makes it to a second season. Although we do question any league that would purposely schedule games against Saturday night college football.

Read - NFL Preseason Ratings vs MLB
Read - UFL Schedule
Read - HDNet to carry UFL games.

Outside of the Planet Green HD addition, Cablevision subscribers haven't had a whole lot to applaud over recently. For fans of Golf / Versus, however, we reckon you all can stop moping around and point your remote to an all new video-on-demand outlet. Starting this week, the carrier will begin offering its iO TV digital cable customers free access to VOD content from Versus and Golf Channel, but sadly, none of it will be shown in high-definition. Maybe one day...

Versus and the Golf Channel have been sharing an HD channel for some time and both have evidently graduated to the point that they're getting their own channel. This seemed like a pretty good combo to us, as we don't see much golf on at night, but we suppose some want to watch bicycle races during the day. What isn't very clear is if the current carriage deals will need to be reworked, of if everyone who has the combo now will automatically get the two dedicated channels when launched. On a who cares note -- E! is getting the HD treatment which we'll file right up there with Lifetime HD, but hey, at least maybe it'll help some poor sap talk his wife into a new HDTV.

Check it: Time Warner Cable has seemingly inserted Versus / Golf HD into the lineup some 20 days prior than expected, presumably to satisfy demands of avid hockey fans wanting their NHL playoffs in high-definition. We've had numerous reports from varying regions in the Empire State affirming that the channel is now live on slot 794, but be sure and drop a note in comments if you've somehow been left out. [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Though many of you may not be familiar with the "television arm of the USA TODAY brand," USA TODAY LIVE is announcing a new partnership with the likes of MOJO HD and Versus (and Fuse, for what it's worth) in order to pump out a smorgasbord of series-based programming in 2008. Up first is City Limits Fishing, a six-part weekly series (starting February 15th) on Versus that highlights world class fishing spots within some of America's most bustling cities. If that's not your bag, you can check out the ten-part Gotta Get Gold series on MOJO HD (starting July 28th), which concentrates on "what it takes to train and to compete at the highest levels in athletics." For more details on each show as well as what's available through Fuse, hit up the read link below.

[Via TVover]

Although Cox inked a deal to snag CNN HD (and TBS HD, mind you) some three months back, it seems as if customers in New Orleans, Louisiana are just now getting a taste. According to a tipster, Cox has just recently threw CNN and Golf / Versus into the high-definition lineup, but stations such as History Channel HD, Science HD and NHL Network HD are still sorely missing. Anyone else enjoying the (admittedly late) newcomers in the area?

[Thanks, Jose R.]

Today's the first day of summer and now we can finally start looking forward to football season. First we learned that CBS is stepping up their NFL HD coverage, then the new Big Ten Network announced that they'd be delivering some HD coverage and now FSN has announced that they will also be producing 31 games this season in our favorite format. Ten of these games will also be carried by Versus to add to their eight HD games. While we're still a long way off from every college game being produced in HD, there is no doubt that we will have more HD football this season than ever before. Now all we have to do is wait...

Following directly in the footsteps of Comcast, it looks like Cablevision has become the next carrier to add Versus HD and Golf Channel HD to its high-definition lineup. Additionally, the deal moves Golf from Cablevision's $4.95-per-month sports tier package to its iO digital lineup. Interestingly, the company's CEO even mentioned that a whopping "80-percent of its cable subscribers were embracing digital television," but neglected to mention the concentration of paying HD customers. So while hockey may be a good ways off at this point, the Cablevision golfers in the crowd will have a lot to look at in the upcoming months.