Comcast, America's biggest cable operator with about 24 million subscribers, brings its Golf Channel and all-sports Versus to NBC Sports and its fledgling Universal Sports Olympic-sport channel. As regulators take months to OK the deal, an early to-do list:

•Call Versus something else: The name, replacing what had been called the Outdoor Life Network, isn't catchy or even sensible. Once dropped, a religious channel could use Verses.

•Figure out what Versus is: It won't be a competitor to ESPN.

Sports leagues would love that — getting somebody to bid against ESPN to jack up their TV deals — but ESPN already has four channels in more TV homes than Versus' 63.4 million. ESPN can amortize the costs of its pricy live events and on-air talent across those channels and through its radio network and website, which is neck-and-neck with Yahoo as sports' most-trafficked site.

In an era where ESPN's greatest threat is a death by a thousand cuts from emerging specialized channels — NFL Network, MLB Network, Big Ten Network — Versus seems like a cut-rate generalist whose top properties — NHL and Tour de France— aren't a claim to fame. Small suggestion: Highlight shows of action outside the U.S. — bloopers are bloopers.

•Throw Hail Marys: Clever ideas are great, like NFL expanding its RedZone Channel — which switches between live games to show scoring opportunities and had been only on satellite TV — to cable TV this season.

But Comcast needs to reel in whales. Like the NFL — it once bid for games that ended up NFL Network — or the Olympics. Upstarts ate away CNN's cable TV news dominance, but that analogy doesn't apply to Comcast somehow denting ESPN. Nobody had to wrest away exclusive CNN rights to, say, the Pentagon or Federal Reserve — but TV sports revolves around such cut-and-dried deals.