Mizlou Television Network

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.

This was 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, boxing, and LPGA golf. In the 1980s Mizlou gave NASCAR its first regular national television coverage and was a telecasting pioneer of the Pro Rodeo circuit as well. Mizlou also used its system to facilitate distribution of live events like the Jerry Lewis Telethon.

The business fell on hard times with the birth of 24/7/365 all sports network like ESPN and with the development of easy satellite distribution of syndicated sports, which rendered its exclusive land based system of distibution obsolete via its easy duplication by satellite feeds. In the early 1990s Mizlou dropped out of the syndication business and sold their programming library to Reach Entertainment and launched an all-sports news network (Mizlou Sports News Network), which failed.

Mizlou covered events are often seen on ESPN Classic and other nostalgia sports channels.