Time Warner Cable Names Sports President

David Rone, former co-head of CAA Sports and senior exec at Fox Sports and Disney, was named [1] president of sports at Time Warner Cable. According to a statement announcing the move, Rone will “work to build and foster relationships with sports leagues, conferences, teams, programming providers, and others in the sports industry.”

Rone’s appointment to the newly created position comes as part of the company’s push to establish itself as a major player in sports programming. Rone will be in charge of building TWC’s two new regional sports networks in Southern California, which the company announced last February as part of a deal with the Los Angeles Lakers. TWC managed to negotiate exclusive television rights to the Lakers away from Fox Sports, a big grab for the company.

Rone’s role will also extend beyond the new networks. According to his new boss [2] Melinda Witmer, the company’s evp, “This was more about the recognition that sports content is among the most important content we provide to our customers, and we really wanted to be improving our game in working with sports programmers in order to use our platform as best we can to attract sports fans. We need someone who eats, sleeps and breathes sports, and David has such a fine reputation in the sports industry that he can be an ambassador for this company to engage better with the sports community.”