Credit NBC for paying just enough attention to what’s happening outside its main network and primetime programming.

The Versus network continues to struggle to find an audience and was fledgling before it was acquired by NBC in February. Monday it was renamed the NBC Sports Network, beginning in January. There are immediate issues, though. The somewhat attractive World Extreme Cagefighting will go away now as its property of the UFC and, as best as I can tell, the replacement is the National Lacrosse League. There’s bull riding and the Tour de France, as well as a 10-year contract to be the NHL’s main network, but those aren’t mainstream sports — ie, they don’t draw the ratings Versus lacked and NBC seeks, especially if the new network will carry Olympic events next summer and could expand to include NFL playoff action in the future.

The key could be college football. Versus aired a great deal of Mountain West and Pac-10 games in recent years and has been re-airing Notre Dame games. NBC seeks a bigger splash and it may have come along at the perfect time for the Big East. NBC’s attempt to assimilate into the mainstream coincides with the notion ESPN has kind of neglected the Big East.

Lazarus says his fledgling network intends to actively pursue the rights to Big East Conference sports – the backbone of ESPN programming in its early years.

“We are very interested in talking to the Big East,” he says. “It is preeminent college basketball — among the top divisions in the sport.”

NBC Sports Network want to step in if the Big East is feeling lost in ESPN’s big schedule.

“We think we can provide an outlet for some of those people who may not have been as shining a star as they once were,” he says.