Will MLS on NBC help IndyCar?

Major League Soccer and the NBC Sports Group have announced a three-year contract that calls for 45 MLS games and four U.S. men's national team matches to be televised live each year, starting in 2012.

The games will be shown live across both NBC and NBC Sports Network each year. This marks the first rights deal for the newly-named cable channel that will be re-branded from Versus in January.

NBC will broadcast two regular-season MLS games, two playoff matches and two appearances by the U.S. each year, marking the first time four MLS games will be broadcast on English-language network television since 2002.

The NBC Sports Network will televise 38 regular-season games, three playoff games and two U.S. matches. All telecasts on NBC and NBC Sports Network will consist of pre-game and post-game coverage.

How will this help IndyCar? Well first it will teach them that you don't divide your events up between two competing TV networks (like ABC and NBC that IndyCar has) that would just as soon seen the other die. B putting all their events on a family of network channels like ABC/ESPN or NBC/NBC Sport Network you will get a consistent and dedicated marketing of your events.

Second, soccer fans watching the NBC Sports network might channel surf and watch an IndyCar race or two. The more people tuning into the NBC Sports Network channel the better for IndyCar. Anything to improve ratings like IndyCar got for Mid-Ohio (0.2) on what is now called Versus.