• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, September 11, 2007

The NFL, which would identify itself as a media company as much as a sports league, has signed another deal offering up its content to a lesser-known broadcast outlet. The 60-station Ion network will carry a condensed, one-hour version of a top NFL game from the week before each Saturday at 6 p.m. EST.

The series "NFL Game of the Week" produced by the league's NFL Films operation premieres Saturday on Ion and will go for the next 16 weeks. The series has aired on the NFL Network since 2003.

Then after the Super Bowl, Ion gets a series similar to the NBA's "Inside Stuff" focusing on players and their lives off the field. Called "Stories of the NFL," 21 episodes of the new series will debut on Ion in February--marking a way for the NFL to keep more content in circulation during the off season.

While Ion has exclusive first-run rights to the "Game of the Week," NFLN could air it subsequently, but has no plans to do so, an Ion representative said. Ion will pay a license fee and sell the ad time, but the league gets avails for its own promos as part of the deal.

The agreement with Ion comes as MyNetworkTV has begun airing "NFL Network Total Access" on Saturdays at 9 p.m. EST, a version of the eponymous NFLN daily show.

With the MNTV and Ion deals, the NFL will now air programming on five broadcast networks.