XM will broadcast extensive coverage of the 92nd running of the Indianapolis 500 on May 25th live from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

"The Greatest Spectacle in Racing" will be heard on the IndyCar Series Racing channel (ch 145) starting at 1pm ET, with the pre-race show at noon ET. This is the first running of the Indy 500 since the unification of the IndyCar Series and CART/Champ Car.

Andretti Green Racing drivers Danica Patrick, Tony Kanaan, Marco Andretti, and Hideki Mutoh will join team co-owner Michael Andretti at the speedway for a special edition of their weekly XM radio show "Andretti Green Racing Hour," which will air on May 21st, 7pm - 8pm ET, on XM Sports Nation (ch 144).

XM Sports Nation will also include daily coverage of the Indy 500, led by the motorsports show "Powershift" hosted by Joe Castello. Castello will host his show (which airs 8-10pm ET on weeknights) live from the speedway on May 22nd and 23rd, and he will host special editions of the show from the track on May 24th at noon ET and May 25th at 11am ET.

XM's IndyCar channel will also be carrying Indy 500 qualifying on May 17-18, Carb Day events and the Firestone Freedom 100 race May 23rd, and the IMS Radio Network show "Indy Live." A full list of dates and times is available here.

(Pop quiz: Guess who's car is pictured?)

XM will cap its first season of carrying college baseball games from the six power conferences - the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10, and SEC - with conference tournament games starting May 21st.

XM greatly expanded its college baseball programming for 2008 with a slate of more than 70 regular-season and tournament games.

Every game of the Big 12 baseball championship will air on XM. For the SEC and ACC tournaments, XM will carry ten games for each tournament, including the finals and semifinals. For the Big East and Big Ten tournaments, XM will carry the finals and semifinals.

The Pac-10, which has college baseball games on XM during the regular season, does not hold a tournament at season's end - so who cares.

Attention baseball fans: You can now create a digital bobblehead of yourself or a friend, wearing your favorite Major League Baseball uniform, courtesy of XM.

You choose any MLB uniform, upload a photo, and with a few clicks, you've got yourself a head-wagging bobblehead (complete with annoying rattle-sound). You can also download the image, and email it to your friends with a little musical accompaniment. The tuneful choices range from a lounge version of "Take Me out to the Ballgame" to a truly stunning a cappella rendition by Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz.

This is the latest addition to the free web site set up by XM to promote the broadcasts of every MLB game for every team. This is the same site that lets you send personalized phone messages from Ortiz and Derek Jeter and, and it now has ring tones and voice-mail greetings from Jeter and Big Papi, too.

Check out Lil Jimmy's bobblehead page here or make your own at XMbaseball.com.

One of the most coveted titles in golf is The Players Championship - with its winners ranging from golf's most famous player, Tiger Woods (pictured) to one of its least known, Craig Perks, (ranked 1,253th).

XM will broadcast The Players, Thursday May 8th - Saturday May 11th, live from the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in the ridiculously beautiful town of Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.  Pre-tournament coverage begins Tuesday, May 6 on the PGA TOUR Network (ch 146).

The world's best golfers will compete on one of the world's toughest courses, labeled as an architectural marvel and "a golfing monstrosity" with its giant mounds and railroad ties. The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass also boasts the most famous hole in golf: The 17th hole, known simply as the "Island Green" with a great reputation for sending golf balls into the water.

XM will have two channels devoted The Players: the PGA TOUR Network for the overall event, and a second channel - XM channel 148 - devoted solely to the 17th hole, taking the audio from the popular PGATOUR.com web page "Live @ THE PLAYERS."

And yes, sports fans, Marie's crew will be there. XM's fan enhancement program will be in full effect, handing out portable XM radios to spectators to use for the day, and selling radios, too.

On Tuesday, XM Satellite Radio will be celebrating Danica Patrick's historic win at the Indy Japan 300 with a special edition of the "Andretti Green Racing Hour," the XM show that Danica co-hosts with fellow members of the AGR racing team.

Patrick won her first IndyCar Series race this past Sunday, making her the first woman to win a major closed-course auto race.

You can hear Danica and members of her family talk about her victory on the show on Tuesday night at 7pm ET on XM Sports Nation (ch 144). Then at 8pm ET, XM will replay its broadcast of the Indy Japan 300, followed by an encore presentation of the "AGR Hour" at 10pm ET.

If and when there is more "Danica on XM" news, or even just "something remotely related to Danica" news, it will be reported right here on Orbitcast. And not simply because it's a legitimate excuse for me to dig through photos of her. Nope. Not at all. I'm actually extremely offended you even thought that.

Danica Patrick became the first woman to win an Indy race when she beat out pole-sitter Helio Castroneves by 5.8594 seconds at the Indy Japan 300.

Word has it that XM is putting together plans for some Danica-related programming to air this week. As soon as there's more details, they'll be posted here. But in the meantime there's always that Sports Illustrated swimsuit photo shoot to remind you how much of a winner she really is.

[Jalopnik]

Ah yes, it's springtime. The flowers are sprouting, the birds are chirping, and sports fans are dreaming about... college football?

Yep. Spring football games are a big tradition for many college programs across the country.  The coach divides the football team into two teams for a scrimmage, and the hardcore fans turn out in droves to get a preview of the new team.

This Saturday, XM will carry the 2008 spring game for the defending national champion LSU Tigers, as well as the annual "G-Day Game" from the University of Georgia, on channel 199.

The Georgia spring game kicks off at 2pm ET/11am PT, and the LSU game starts at 6pm ET/3pm PT.

This month, XM will also air spring football games from Oklahoma State, Illinois, Penn State, Tennessee, and Arkansas. (The Texas Longhorns spring game aired last Saturday.)

The 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs will air live starting Wednesday, April 9th on XM channels 204 through 209.

Pierre McGuire is joining the XM team of hosts and analysts on NHL Home Ice (ch 204), which includes Hall of Famer Phil Esposito, Gary Green, Denis Potvin, Bill Clement, Jim Tatti, Scott Laughlin, Jamie Shalley, Bob McKenzie, Don LaGreca, and E.J. Hradek.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman hosts the show "NHL Hour" on NHL Home Ice. Commissioner Bettman and a rotation of NHL executives talk with fans across the U.S. and Canada on Thursdays 4-5 pm ET.

Esposito, who co-hosts the show "In the Slot" with Tatti weekdays 3-6 pm ET on NHL Home Ice, will announce his third annual Espo Awards on Monday, April 7th. Esposito will announce awards for the 2007-08 NHL season, such as Most Valuable Player, Coach of the Year, Top Rookie, Toughest Player and even Most Difficult Name to Pronounce. Each year, the awards are chosen by Esposito and his XM panel of hockey analysts.

Check out the full NHL schedule on XM here.

XM is poking fun at the presidential election race and has created their own "campaign" (get it?) to promote the MLB on XM. If you remember their Call Stars marketing push, think of this as Call Stars 2.0, because this time it's not just a website, but it's also a TV spot.

The new TV spot parodies of election ads with Ortiz campaigning for the "Every Game" platform, while Jeter stumps for "Every Team." The TV spot and online ads are premiering this week.

XM has also kicked off multiple websites dedicated to this campaign: XMbaseball.com, as well as JeterForPresident.com and OrtizForPresident.com - don't get confused though, they all go to the same site.

At any of the links above you can enter in a bunch of info and send your friend a personalized phone call from candidate Ortiz or candidate Jeter. Either one is sure to get a laugh from your friends.

Soon the site will let you upload a photo and create your own bobblehead image complete with your favorite team's uniform. XM will then let your personalized bobblehead star in a campaign video as the running mate for Jeter or Ortiz, and then share it with whoever you want. Pretty cool. They'll take it a step further and let you create a voicemail greeting from the candidates, or download a customized ringtone.

It brings together all the aspects for a successful viral campaign: silly humor, the ability to share (via mobile and online platforms even), and a built-in hardcore fanbase. It's great to see that XM is expanding on this even further.

Watch the TV commercial after the jump...

Forget the DOJ, this is truly a sign that the sky is falling:
XM will be adding the MLB Home Plate channel (ch 175) to its XM Radio Online internet radio service, starting this Saturday (March 29th).

This marks the first time that the popular baseball talk channel will be available on the internet. XM launched the channel on the sats in 2005.

The move is welcome news for Home Plate fans who have been begging XM (and posting comments on Orbitcast) about adding the channel to XM Radio Online. Combined with the fact that Play Ball will have an exclusive online presence for one day, signals that XM is finally ready to utilize one of its big draws to drive usage of its internet radio service.

And that's a great thing.

If you're already an XM subscriber, you (hopefully) already know that you can listen to XMRO for no charge. Not an XM subscriber? Grab a free, 14-day trial at xmradio.com/mlb, and remember, XM is offering new users of its online radio service an introductory rate of $2.99/month for the first six months.