Charter Communications will be breathing a big sigh of relief should the University of Wisconsin football team be invited to the Champs Sports Bowl rather than the Insight Bowl, as now appears to be likely.

That's because the Insight Bowl, which is held on New Year's Eve in Tempe, Ariz., is televised by the NFL Network -- which, despite years of negotiations, has yet to reach an agreement to be carried on Madison's dominant cable provider or on Time Warner Cable, which serves the Milwaukee market.

The Champs Sports Bowl, which is held Dec. 27 in Orlando, Fla., is aired by ESPN, which is universally available on cable and satellite systems.

Officials for that bowl, which has prominence in the pecking order over the Insight, have made strong overtures to Wisconsin. The Badgers appear to be their first choice should the Big Ten Conference land two Bowl Championship Series berths, which are announced Sunday.

However, should UW slip to the Insight, Charter intends to pull out all the stops to convince NFL Network to allow the game to be aired locally, spokesman John Miller said. Charter's aim would be to broker a one-time arrangement because the chance of a last-minute, full-scale carriage agreement is remote, Miller said.

"If Insight is the Badger bowl game, we would request that NFL Network allow the game to be aired throughout the home states of the participating schools," Miller said in an e-mail to The Capital Times on Tuesday. "If denied, we would most likely propose to NFL Network that we carry the game on a pay-per-view basis, with NFL Network and the schools taking all the revenue generated."

There is some precedent for such a one-game deal, although it took enormous political pressure for it to happen.

In 2006, NFL Network reached a deal with Time Warner to allow Rutgers fans in the New Jersey area to see the team play Kansas State in the Texas Bowl.

Time Warner and Cablevision Systems agreed to air NFL Network from Dec. 24-30 in order to air the Dec. 28 game that year.

In addition, NFL Network last year allowed its telecast of the season finale between the then-undefeated New England Patriots and the New York Giants to be simulcast by broadcast networks NBC and CBS.

NFL Network and the cable companies remain stymied primarily over the level of service on which the channel would be carried. The NFL wants to be on a basic level of service, while the companies want to place it on a digital sports tier.