Footballs are flying again and local TV stations are increasingly finding ways to pump up the volume of their online offerings.

One station of note is WMC-TV (NBC) in Memphis. Its prep football coverage is called Friday Night Fever and includes the obligatory weekly scoreboard, upcoming football match-ups, and video-on-demand highlights of this year's action culled from the station's on-air Friday night prep sports wrapup. A two-year archive of content is also part of the section.

The page is fully sponsored by Taco Bell, who receives multiple banners on all Friday Night Fever pages. The famous Taco Bell' "bell" sounder is also heard by anyone logging onto the Prep Sports home page.

As an added feature to its coverage WMC streams an Internet High School Game of the Week. This VOD stream is produced specifically for the Internet. Sponsors receive spots in-game and a banner rotation next to the video player.

These weekly games are sponsored by:

• Olive Branch Suzuki
• City Auto
• Bath Fitter

THE ONLINE SPIN

Solid sponsorships like Taco Bell's make it possible to justify the time and effort to produce a top-notch online prep sports section.

WMC raises the ante with its Internet Game of the Week franchise. Furthermore since these games really drill down to the neighborhood level, stations have a golden opportunity to target advertisers that are specific to each school's locale.