We're reaching the time of year — and the part of this quadrennium — when NBC Sports starts kicking into high gear.

The sports NBC has been showing in the last couple of weeks aren't exactly the kind that produce enormous ratings — tennis, track and field, swimming, volleyball — but much of it is put on with the idea of getting you into an Olympic state of mind. The opening ceremonies in Beijing are just over a month away.

Along with that, the network is finishing up its "Breakfast at Wimbledon" tennis coverage this weekend. The women's final and men's and women's doubles finals are at 6 a.m. Saturday and the men's final and mixed doubles final are at 6 a.m. Sunday.

NBC thinks enough of the U.S. Olympic Trials in swimming to put them on in prime time at 8 tonight and Saturday. At 7 p.m. Sunday, the network will mix the final day of swimming from Omaha, Neb., with the last day of the track and field trials from Eugene, Ore. USA Network will show track coverage at 11 tonight (some satellite systems will have it at 8) and NBC will put it on live at 2 p.m. Saturday.

Intermingled with all of this will be pro volleyball. The AVP men's championship will be at noon Saturday and women's at 1:30 p.m. Sunday.

And as if all this coverage wasn't enough, USA Today reports NBC will launch two sport-specific, commercial-free channels for basketball and soccer during the Olympics that will show every game in those sports in Beijing. It will also have two Olympic foreign language channels — Korean and Mandarin Chinese — a first in the U.S.

NBC Universal and World Championship Sports Network recently announced the formation of the Universal Sports channel, which will carry Olympic sports programming year-round, including the U.S. Trials.

Watching the Europeans: Spain's 1-0 win over Germany in the final of the European Soccer Championships earned a 3.1 overnight rating on ABC. Sports Business Daily points out, by comparison, the network drew an 8.6 for the 2006 World Cup final between Italy and France.

The final also gave ESPN Deportes its biggest rating of any kind, 2.78.

Summer reruns: With its live events dwindling during the summer, FSN Prime Ticket plans to show classic games this summer starting at 9:30 tonight with two Southern California high school football games, Notre Dame-Canyon from 2006 followed by Hart-Canyon from 2007 at 11.

On Saturday, Prime will show a 2003 Kings-Ducks hockey game in which Anaheim rallied in the last 10 minutes of the third period to win 6-5 and the Ducks-Red Wings triple-overtime playoff game from 2003.

Notable games ahead include the Lakers-Knicks game in 1972 that produced the Lakers' first L.A. championship and Kobe Bryant's 81-point game from 2006, both on July 19; and of local interest a Westlake-Hart football game from 2003 on Aug. 15 and a Westlake-Thousand Oaks football game from 2001 on Aug. 22.

Other notes: ESPN2's Wimbledon rating is averaging 0.5 this year, up 24 percent from last year's 0.4. Sirius Satellite Radio will air the men's and women's Wimbledon semifinals live on Channel 119. HBO will re-air a 1999 documentary, "Fists of Freedom: The Story of the '68 Summer Games," at 7 p.m. Tuesday, recalling the controversial actions of sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos.

— Jim Carlisle