ESPN's recently announced 8-year TV rights deal with Little League Baseball to televise the Little League World Series baseball and softball events through 2014 is good for youth sports.

The games will be shown on ESPN's various networks as well as on ABC. This season for the first time, all 32 games of the Little League Baseball Wold Series will be televised. The fact that ESPN is also showcasing the Little League Softball World Series is great news as well.

It's one thing for our youth sports-minded kids to watch pro and college games, but a totally different experience to watch people their own age playing in an international competition. This increased coverage is bound to drive up interest in and participation levels of both sports, much like the Olympics does for a wide variety of sports every four years.

I'm looking forward to watching some of these games with my kids, and seeing what happens as a result. My guess is that before long they'll be asking to go down to the park to play ball, which would be OK with me.