TiVo's Timely End-Around

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If you're like me, you'll be watching tonight's game between the Miami Dolphins and the Pittsburgh Steelers for more than just the gridiron appreciation. If fantasy football is your bag, too, you'll love the latest service on TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO).

The company is teaming up with CBS (NYSE: CBS) this season to provide Sportsline.com fantasy football leagues with the ability to receive live stats, league scores, and player news through their TiVo boxes. Owners will also be able to tweak their lineups and view related video content. It's a lot of the cool features that Sportsline offers in its online leagues, only now couch potatoes don't have to leave the living room on Sundays to boot up their computers.

I'm stoked. I've been in a pair of Sportsline leagues for years, and I also have one of the second-generation TiVo boxes with the WiFi access that makes the nifty service possible. I'll kick the tires over the weekend, but if it delivers as advertised, this clearly enhances the value of a TiVo subscription to folks who are already glued to their sets.

Football is big business. Many credit the subscriber-snagging success of DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) and Sirius Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) to their NFL programming deals.

As a Motley Fool Stock Advisor newsletter service recommendation, TiVo has had a rocky run. But a lot of its recent licensing moves and patent wins make me think the future is going to get a lot brighter for TiVo than its present rut. (The stock has been stuck in the single digits for ages.)

If the Cincinnati Bengals bounced back to become legitimate contenders, I'm sure TiVo can't be too far away.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz has been a TiVo user for ages. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. T he Fool has a disclosure policy.