Sporting News

Grant Wahl, America’s best soccer writer, posts a long interview transcript with Terry Byrne, best known as David Beckham‘s former manager and “best mate.” The self-made man has a new gig, however: Helping to bring back the New York Cosmos.

The legendary club featured Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, and other massive names. They were hugely popular in New York, dominating Studio 54 and earning themselves a much-loved documentary. In 1985, they disappeared from the field.

But now, the Cosmos are coming back. Byrne, former Tottenham Hotspurs director Paul Kelmsley, and a few other executives are intent on making the Cosmos Major League Soccer’s 20th franchise in 2013.

In essence, this is a media, marketing, and branding story. How do you transform a franchise that exists in the hearts and minds into one that appears on the field?

Byrne has some thoughts. Read more

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Oh man, this is awesome.

Charles Barkley and the rest of TNT’s NBA broadcast crew will join CBS’s March Madness team. Sir Charles, Kenny Smith, and the rest of the crew will work from the studio, while Marv Albert(!) will call some early round games.

And you thought March Madness couldn’t get any better.

Behind the strength of Monday Night Football, ESPN won the monthly ratings race for basic cable networks during the month of October.

The network averaged 3.7 million viewers between Sept. 27 to Oct. 31 according to a Disney-ABC Television Group analysis of Nielsen data.

TBS finished second with 3.2 million viewers and USA was third with 3 million. All three networks lost viewers compared to last year’s numbers. Read more

Disney and Time Warner Cable have finally cut a deal, ensuring that the ESPN networks will remain on-air for TWC customers.

For TWC customers that are also sports fans, the deal also brings a number of new services as well:

ESPN3.com: TWC cable customers that also get high speed internet through the company will get access to the ESPN3.com broadband network. Australian Rules Football fans, rejoice!

ESPN Goal Line: A new highlight channel, available to TWC sports tier customers. The once-a-week channel is similar to NFL RedZone, but for college football. Every Saturday the channel will be available, giving customers live look-ins to exciting games, with a particular focus on teams that are in scoring range. A similar service called ESPN Buzzer Beater will be available during college basketball season.

Authentication: The ability to watch ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU through broadband services “as well as mobile Internet devices like an iPad.” Details on the service will be revealed at a later date.

The press release, with more details about the deal, is after the jump.

Read more