Conferences: The Horizon League agreed to a contract extension with Nelligan Sports Marketing. The company has exclusive rights to manage the league’s corporate sponsorship and marketing rights. The company will market sponsorships for the conference’s men’s and women’s basketball tournaments and other postseason championships, radio and television spots, signage and title opportunities for other league programming … DIRECTV will launch the Mountain West Sports Network (The Mtn.) on August 27. The network will be available in the states with Mountain West institutions on channel 616. The rest of the country will access the network with a subscription to the DIRECTV Sportspack. The move will vastly increase the reach of the first network dedicated to a college athletics conference … The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference chose the Times Union Center in Albany, New York as the revised site for the 2009 men’s and women’s basketball tournaments and the Arena at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport, Connecticut, as the 2011 host. The original host for the 2009 tournament, the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton, New Jersey, asked the conference to consider an alternate host for the tournaments.

Miscellaneous: The Harris-Williams Foundation, co-founded by former Grambling football student-athlete Doug Williams, donated $15,000 to the Grambling athletics program intended for improvements in the meeting rooms at the football team’s facility. The donation was part of a group of gifts to a variety of charitable organizations in the Shreveport, Louisiana, area, including Community Renewal International and the creation of a scholarship fund for single mothers … Three-time Division I football champion Appalachian State announced it has sold 62 percent more football season tickets than in 2007. The school is renovating Kidd Brewer Stadium to add more than 4,000 seats to accommodate growing interest in the program. The school led the Football Championship Subdivision in attendance in 2007, including five sell-outs in advance of game day. If available, single-game tickets will go on sale August 5.