Fans of teen-heavy football dramas rejoice: NBC has found a way to renew its critically acclaimed, but barely watched show Friday Night Lights for a third season. The show’s salvation comes thanks to a partnership between NBC and DirecTV, who will be helping the network shoulder the cost of the show’s upcoming third season. DirecTV will also air the show across multiple platforms, whatever that means. (I’m guessing TV, satellite, and web. Or somesuch.)

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I’m told that Jeff Zucker, Marc Graboff and Ben Silverman had been searching for a way to renew the critically acclaimed but low-rated Friday Night Lights for a 3rd season so that it would still make financial sense. The answer came in a deal with DirecTV, now owned by John Malone’s Liberty Media. Clearly Malone is looking to distinguish DirecTV from its rivals on a content as well as price basis. “It’s an innovative deal where NBC found a partner who will share costs and exhibition windows,” an insider explained to me. So both NBC and DirecTV will be airing Friday Night Lights across multipurpose platforms.

I’ve always liked FNL everytime I’ve run across it while channel surfing, but it’s never been must-see viewing for me. The football games, in particular, are just so ridiculously fairy tale-ish. The team always finds a way to win in the end by some fluke miracle of some such. Sometimes I get the feeling the people who writes for the show have never actually seen a football game.

But hey, more chances to catch Adrianne Palicki on TV on a weekly basis? I ain’t complain’.