My favorite time of the year is quickly approaching, as we are just over a month away from the start of the college football season, and the NFL is now in full swing with training camps.

I’ve started to watch a few baseball games this year (especially when the Twins are on in HD), but nothing compares to football for me.

I was surprised to see last night that the newly formed Big Ten Network that launches Aug. 30th, will be included on the basic tier of DirecTV. And here I was already to shell out $10 / month for the sports package. I’m glad I don’t, as NFL Ticket just hit my bill. I’ll be interested to see how much HD bandwidth the Big Ten Network gets, as they keep talking about how they’re launching with the most HD content of any new TV channel. DirecTV’s new satellite doesn’t come online until October with more HD capacity, so this will be interesting to see.

In related news, I’ve gotten my hands on a few Packer tickets this year – I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see Favre play knowing this is probably his last year. (But we say that every year, don’t we?)

10 days until the first preseason game! Are you ready for some football?