Are you ready for some football? How about full-length, live coverage of 24 NCAA bowl games. Sounds good, right? Just forget about big screen HDTV though, this is MediaFLO on your itty bitty cellphone display. Fanatics (in every sense of the word) will have access to games provided by ESPN Mobile TV, CBS Mobile and FOX Mobile through Verizon's V CAST Mobile TV. Unfortunately, none of the BCS Championship games will be available on the service. You will however have access to Roady's Humanitarian Bowl, Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl, the Meinke Car Care Bowl, and Papa John's.com bowl to name just a few. "Must see" games Verizon -- really?

Prepare to get your shine on VZW customers -- the LG VX8700 is up, pretty, and ready for purchase. As a wink-wink, nudge-nudge in the direction of LG's Shine branding, Verizon calls the new clamshell a "shiny new addition" to their LG lineup. No surprises on the specs: V Cast support, stereo Bluetooth, microSD expansion and 2 megapixel cam. Ink a 2-year deal and she's yours for $179.99 after $50 online discount. Now go get it, the first Shine has arrived Stateside and is exclusive to Verizon.

[Thanks, V-Doc and everyone who sent this in]

MobileESPN is back from the dead sheriff, only this time as a zombied version of its former self. No longer an MVNO, the service for sportos is now limited exclusively to Verizon Wireless subscribers under a new multi-year deal. According to the AP, the deal is not yet finalized but should be announced sometime today with a service launch in "the coming months." And it's free for those of you already ponyed up for VZW's VCAST service and compatible phone. Verizon is also expected to announce later today that the ESPN channel on their MediaFLO-based VCAST TV service will feature much of the same programming you're already familiar with -- albeit, presumably in bite-sized chunks more suitable to TV on the go. This must be what the execs at Verizon had in mind when they passed on the iPhone. Braaaaains, give us your brains!

[Thanks, unfuccwittable]

Well folks, we told you just over three weeks ago about "advanced talks" between Verizon and YouTube, and it looks like as of today, the two lovebirds have just tied the knot officially. with their joint service will launch next month. However, there are a couple of points to take stock of: first, it's exclusively on Verizon, which means it's going to run on V CAST -- costing you an extra $15 a month, that is, assuming you have a V CAST-capable handset. (According to one analyst, Roger Entner, only about 10 percent of Verizon's 20 million users with such phones have signed up for the service so far.) Second, Verizon's exclusivity is only going to be for "a short time," and it's more than likely that T-Mobile, Sprint, Cingular and friends have already been knocking at YouTube's door. Third, as you probably know, YouTube is a two-way street (you know, that whole "user-generated" thing we've been hearing so much about) and as such, Reuters is reporting that you'll be able to post videos directly from your handset with the use of a "five-digit short code instead of an email address." Finally, the Mercury News points out that you won't have access to all of YouTube, just what Verizon decides that you'll want via its proprietary YouTube channel. So that means you can probably forget about catching episodes of "Ask A Ninja" on your bus ride home. Still, diluted YouTube is better than no YouTube; we can almost hear thousands of freshly-bought VX9900s flipping open to check out the content already.

Read - Reuters
Read - San Jose Mercury News

Verizon seems to be throwing as many trendy extras as humanly possible into its (oftentimes overpriced) monthly add-on pool, and may now be nearing a deal with the video clip-broadcasting extraordinaire, YouTube. Not long after announcing a simplistic fee-based system to keep your contact list from being destroyed, Verizon Wireless "is in advanced talks" with YouTube in a deal that would bring the zany segments we all love to your very own mobile screen (and television, too). America's second-place carrier is looking to grab an edge in the marketing department as it hopes to "further its efforts to expand into internet and entertainment services." Under the terms being discussed, V CAST users would have access to YouTube videos for a currently undisclosed price, and Verizon reportedly hopes to "offer YouTube videos as an on-demand feature" while watching TV (FiOS anyone?). YouTube isn't selling the rest of its soul without caution, however, as the deal could end up being exclusive in nature, but only for a limited time. We'll keep you posted on how much "America's most reliable wireless network" plans on bumping your already overwhelming monthly bill should this deal go down.

With release dates galore, unboxing pics and of course a whole former life as Korea-only hawterness, you can understand if we're happy to be "done" with this one. Verizon has finally released LG's Chocolate phone, the VX8500. There's a mostly a dearth of surprises: sexy slider action in a 0.69-inch thick form factor, V Cast Music store support, 1.3 megapixel camera and some speedy EV-DO. The biggest news is that along with the release, Verizon is dropping the $15 monthly fee from their V Cast Music store, making downloads "only" cost the two buck fee for dual PC and phone downloads. So, if you haven't already bought one and sent us unboxing pics, you can pick up the $150 phone (after a $50 rebate) and be the coolest kid on your block for at least five seconds.

Read - Verizon launches Chocolate
Read - Verizon drops V Cast Music monthly fee

Last time we checked in on Motorola's V3m -- a slight music-centric update to the EV-DO V3c -- we weren't quite sure if this was going to Verizon or Sprint, but it looks like Verizon won out in the end, and are apparently going to be offering the handset for $150 with a 2-year contract. The phone features a MicroSD slot for music and video storage, and a 1.3 megapixel camera, but there doesn't seem to be a lot else new going on here. Music wise, the phone is designed to work with Verizon's V CAST music and video services, but we're not sure of codec support beyond those downloads (though MP3 seems a given and PlaysForSure is likely).

[Thanks, Ryan]