Mizlou Television Network

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The Mizlou Television Network was an early syndicator of television sports in the United States, particularly, but not limited to, the southern states. It was founded in 1961 by Vic Piano. Its first telecast was of the Peach Bowl football game.

The network was not a full-time network like NBC, ABC or CBS. Rather, it produced sports programming and offered it to an "ad hoc" set of affiliates set up on an event by event basis. It was seen on affiliates of all three networks, and on independent television stations as well.

In an era long before satellite distribution of television signals, Mizlou had, outside of the major networks, the only system capable of distribution of signals to television stations on a nationwide basis in that era, via a nationwide system of land lines and microwave facilities.

Mizlou covered more college bowl games than any other network in its era, and also covered college basketball, NASL soccer, Arena Football League games, boxing, and LPGA golf. In the 1980s Mizlou gave NASCAR its first regular national television coverage and was a telecasting pioneer of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association as well. Mizlou also used its system to facilitate distribution of live events like Jerry Lewis' Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon.

The business fell on hard times with the birth of all-sports networks like ESPN and with the development of easy satellite distribution of syndicated sports, which rendered its exclusive land based system of distribution obsolete. (ESPN actually syndicated some Mizlou programs, including the 1984 Holiday Bowl in which BYU beat Michigan to clinch the national championship.) In the early 1990s, Mizlou dropped out of the syndication business and sold their programming library to Margate Entertainment LLC and launched an all-sports news network (Mizlou Sports News Network), which failed.

However, in 2004, Atlanta, Georgia businessman, Don "Moose" Lewis, revived the Mizlou brand with the Georgia incorporation of Mizlou Sports & News Network, Inc. Mr. Lewis then began restocking the Mizlou library with sports footage of professional boxing, professional wrestling, professional arm wrestling, professional men and women's basketball, and automobile racing.

Early Mizlou-covered events are often seen on TV4U.com and other nostalgia sports channels. The reorganized Mizlou also plans its own website with current and classic programming.