Media Notes

With the NBA unveiling a new partnership with YouTube yesterday, and the NHL also having a deal with the Web site, in N.Y., Richard Sandomir notes the NFL has “placed some marketing footage on the site but little else.” NFL Dir of Corporate Communications Brian McCarthy said that the league “preferred to stock its Web site, NFL.com, with video, and that it has not found any type of business model with YouTube that makes ‘strategic or economic sense.’” MLB has no relationship with YouTube (N.Y. TIMES, 2/27).

BACK ON BOARD: The Sharks reopened their message board last week, six weeks after closing it down. Users must now “register with a legitimate e-mail address and activate the account with a link sent to that site.” The team has also banned addresses from free sites, such as Yahoo or Hotmail, “so it can better trace anyone who posts the spam or inappropriate material that forced the shutdown” (SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 2/27).

NOTES: SI.com’s Peter King noted that there are 350 media members at the NFL Combine this year, compared to “maybe 15” ten years ago. With the addition of NFL Network and Sirius NFL Radio, King wrote, “Instead of having a half-hour alone with [Colts President] Bill Polian, now we get a few minutes, and the NFL entities get him for much of the time we used to have with him exclusively” (SI.com, 2/26)....MASN will not offer HD telecasts this season “due in large part to channel capacity of cable systems. The goal is for HD to come in 2008 for all Orioles and Nationals home telecasts” (WASHINGTON EXAMINER, 2/24)....The Sportsman Channel has launched in several Comcast Cable markets, including Tuscaloosa and Huntsville, Alabama, and Houma and Laplace, Louisiana (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 2/27).