Fox Cable to Launch Extreme Sports Channel

News Corp.’s Fox Cable Networks Group plans to launch a new sports channel to appeal to teens and young men and compete against Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN2.

The new channel, which will be available to about 2 million of the nation’s 105 million households when it debuts next summer, will showcase extreme sports such as skateboarding, snowboarding, surfing and motocross. Fox said it will draw programming for the yet-to-be-named network from its sister regional sports cable networks and from Fox Sports Net. The company says DirecTV and Time Warner Cable systems have agreed to carry the channel.

The new Fox network will target so-called echo boomers -- people born from 1977 to 1997.