With Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo signed and David Villa perhaps on his way, Real Madrid is building a new team with a new megastar every day.

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The inaugural US Pole Dance Championship was held at Bleecker Street Theater in New York City. Around 300 enthusiastic pole fans from all over the US attended the show to watch the nation's elite pole dancers live on stage.

Who is the Douchebag of the Year? From Business: Bernie Madoff or AIG? Politics: Limbaugh or Blagojevich? Sports: A-Rod or Bonds? Entertainment: Chris Brown or Octo-Mom? Vote Now!

Drinking and driving, bong hits, Vegas strippers… as American as Thanksgiving dinner!

The greatest benefit of the New Orleans Saints' playoff run was the attention their city received from all kinds of outside news media curious about the Who Dat Nation's capital city. It was a weeks-long love letter. The Super Bowl was held where? Miami? You would have barely known that from the pregame coverage. The Saints-charged national interest in New Orleans comes at the beginning of a year that promises plenty of it. Tags: Football Posted by: ampedstatus

"Drew Brees, a career underdog, outdueled Peyton Manning, the NFL's golden boy, lifting a franchise, a team and a city to once-unthinkable heights Sunday night in Super Bowl XLIV. For four seasons, Brees carried the football dreams of New Orleans on his shoulder pads. Against the favored Indianapolis Colts, the sentimental favorites culminated the 2009 season with a 31-17 upset victory for their first Super Bowl triumph after four decades of almost-habitual losing." Tags: Football Posted by: ampedstatus

While it was the players of the New Orleans Saints who pushed them into the Super Bowl, it's the team's front office that faces a tall order after Sunday's game. More than 50 percent of the players on the Saints' roster have contracts that expire after the Super Bowl, according to NFL Players Association records." Tags: Football Posted by: ampedstatus

Many football fans, leading with their head, viewed the Indianapolis Colts as the better team coming into Super Bowl XLIV. But when all the multi-colored confetti had rained down on Sun Life Stadium, after the New Orleans Saints took down the favored Colts 31-17, the game turned out to be about heart." Tags: Football Posted by: ampedstatus

"Florida State will vacate athletic victories from 2006 and 2007, including 12 credited to former football coach Bobby Bowden, as part of its penalty for an academic fraud scandal in 2006-07 involving 61 student-athletes, the school announced." Tags: Football Posted by: ampedstatus

If you’re wondering what the Twittersphere is saying about this Sunday’s Super Bowl commercials, Boston ad firm Mullen is keeping a running score. Mullen partnered with New Brunswick’s Radian6 to create BrandBowl 2010. The online ad-review site collects and analyzes all worldwide tweets mentioning Super Bowl commercials and translates them into a near-real-time, top-10 ranking of each brand’s popularity. Launched yesterday, www.brandbowl2010.com shows the number of tweets that mention each brand; a “net sentiment” score that measures whether Twitterers’ overall reaction to each brand is positive or negative; and a list of adjectives used in tweets to describe each commercial. Tags: Twitter advertising Social Media Posted by: ampedstatus

Two weeks ago, the New Orleans Saints played the Minnesota Vikings for the National Football Conference Championship. My wife and I couldn't watch the game alone -- we didn't want to bear the burden of defeat or experience the thrill of victory alone. Near kickoff, we drove the city's streets just before the game started and they were eerily void of people just as I remembered them when I returned to the city days after Hurricane Katrina struck. We arrived at the uptown home of some friends, just blocks from quarterback Drew Brees' house, and nervously ate the food and drink of this town. Our host had made a pot of gumbo, using a chicken he had fried and a dark roux. I separated yolks from egg whites, poured gin, heavy cream, simple syrup and orange flower water into my cocktail shaker and shook like crazy for a full minute to confect a round of Ramos gin fizzes, a drink invented in New Orleans more than a century ago. Despite our efforts, things looked grim in the fourth quarter. With the score tied and very little time on the clock, the Vikings had the ball, were in field goal range, and could take the game with a decent field goal kick. But we sipped our fizzes for good luck and a flag was thrown against the Vikings for something called "12 men in a huddle," an unlikely mishap for the polished team, driving the Vikings back beyond field goal range, which forced overtime, where the Saints won possession on the coin toss and took the game with a field goal." Tags: Football Posted by: ampedstatus

"If the Colts are to win, obviously the No. 1 thing they've got to handle is the Saints blitz, because New Orleans caused a lot of problems for both us and the Vikings. But some of those problems came because of the Saints having an advantage in their dome with the noise, and being able to get the quick break off the snap. I would expect some of their advantage is going to be equalized by the neutral field." Tags: Football Posted by: ampedstatus

For Dwight Freeney, South Florida is the perfect locale for a Super Bowl -- and a sore ankle. The Colts All-Pro defensive end said he's been walking around barefoot and along the sandy beach outside the team's hotel to strengthen his sprained right ankle. It may be enough to get him into Sunday's game against the New Orleans Saints. "Sometimes walking is good because it keeps things fluid," Freeney said Wednesday. "You hear people say he should be in a boot or something. But sometimes it can get stiff, and you've got to get that motion back in the ankle. It gets the blood flowing, so I've been walking around barefoot and in the sand."" Tags: Football Posted by: ampedstatus

Justin Verlander and the Detroit Tigers have agreed to a five-year, $80 million contract, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday night because the deal had not been announced. The person said the contract could be completed as soon as Thursday. Tags: Baseball Posted by: ampedstatus

With his superstar hobbling and the Charlotte Bobcats refusing to go away, Phil Jackson never got terribly comfortable while becoming the winningest coach in Los Angeles Lakers history. Andrew Bynum had 17 points and 14 rebounds, and Lamar Odom scored 19 points while making several big plays down the stretch, making sure Jackson added another superlative to his matchless coaching career in Los Angeles' 99-97 victory over the Bobcats on Wednesday night." Tags: Basketball Posted by: ampedstatus

"News Corp.’s Fox and Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN plan to bid for U.S. rights to televise the 2014 and 2016 Olympics, challenging NBC, which said it would lose money on this month’s Winter Games. Fox’s bid will reflect the costs of producing the Olympic Games, said David Hill, chairman of Fox Sports. CBS Corp. and Time Warner Inc. also are considering a joint bid for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, two people with knowledge of the situation said. " Tags: Olympics Posted by: ampedstatus

Forget Ashton and Oprah. This is how you know Twitter's really broken into the mainstream: The NFL has launched a page of aggregated tweets pertaining to Sunday's Super Bowl XLIV, and even designated an official hash tag (#SB44) for users to categorize their tweets as Super Bowl-related. NFL.com's "Tag The Super Bowl" page aggregates both Twitter posts and Flickr photos that are accompanied by the hash tag, though it notes that photos taken inside stadiums must comply with photography regulations printed on the back of the ticket, which prohibit distributing "game action" photos. One can only assume that tweets are rather filtered, given the propensity for passionate sports fans to speak ill of the opposing team in colorful terms." Tags: Football Social Media Twitter Posted by: ampedstatus

Archie and Olivia Manning’s galleried Greek Revival home is well known in this legendary city. It is a recommended site for visitors touring the city’s famed Garden District. While the building, a tan house with a front porch swing, is storied for its architecture, it may be most famous for being the childhood home of the N.F.L. quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning. Tags: Football Posted by: ampedstatus

The hope is that Dwight Freeney will play in Sunday's Super Bowl for the Indianapolis Colts. The plan is to play the game without him. After Freeney missed all four practices last week, Coach Jim Caldwell said Monday the team was preparing to play without the injured All-Pro defensive end. "He hasn't been practicing, so if he's not practicing, we are preparing to not have him," Caldwell told reporters after arriving in South Florida. "If he can't go, we'll do some rotations, and Raheem [Brock] will be a big part of that." Tags: Football Posted by: ampedstatus

Kobe Bryant got the Los Angeles Lakers' franchise scoring record, but the Memphis Grizzlies spoiled the celebration. Bryant scored 44 points, passing Jerry West as the Lakers' career scorer, but it wasn't enough as the Grizzlies got 22 points and 17 rebounds from Zach Randolph to defeat the Lakers 95-93 on Monday night. Tags: Basketball Posted by: ampedstatus

The NFL Players Association won a decision Monday from Special Master Stephen Burbank that will prevent league owners from dismantling the supplemental revenue sharing (SRS) pool in 2010, as management had planned. The pool was valued at $210 million in 2009 and $220 million for 2010. Burbank rejected an interpretation from the NFL Management Council that an owners resolution in March 2006 determined the supplemental revenue sharing pool was only required during years in which the NFL was operating under a salary cap. Tags: Football Posted by: ampedstatus

New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez has decided to undergo surgery on his left knee, according to a report from the New York Daily News. The Daily News posted on its Web site early Tuesday morning that it has learned Sanchez will have surgery in the next two or three weeks. The paper said it would be performed by the Jets' doctors, led by Ken Montgomery. The surgery would stabilize the patella ligament in his left knee, which was injured when he was at USC." Tags: Football Posted by: ampedstatus

"Mike Martz, the headstrong coach who orchestrated "The Greatest Show on Turf" while molding Kurt Warner into a Pro Bowl quarterback with the St. Louis Rams, is the Chicago Bears' new offensive coordinator." Tags: Football Posted by: ampedstatus

In its new role as a warmup to the Super Bowl, the Pro Bowl became a series of wind sprints. Long gains were the rule and hard hitting was the exception as the AFC beat the NFC 41-34 on Sunday night. Light showers fell for much of the game, stirring memories of a rainy Super Bowl in Miami three years ago. But uniforms remained mostly spotless, with more pushing and shoving than tackling. Tags: Football Posted by: ampedstatus