Star Sports (formerly ESPN Star Sports) is a group of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n multinational

pay television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to Subscription business model, subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichan ...

sports channels owned by

Disney Star Disney Star Private Limited is an Indian media conglomerate and a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company India. It is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Disney Star network runs more than 70 TV channels in eight languages, reac ...

(formerly ''Star India''), a subsidiary of

The Walt Disney Company India The Walt Disney Company India Private Limited, known simply as Disney India, is the Indian subsidiary of the Indo Pacific region of the American media and entertainment conglomerate The Walt Disney Company and headquartered in Mumbai, Maharasht ...

. Previously a part of

ESPN Star Sports Fox Sports (formerly ESPN Star Sports) was a pan-Asian pay television network broadcasting in Asia, operated by Fox Networks Group Asia Pacific, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company (Southeast Asia) Pte. Ltd. It also oversaw a version of Sta ...

with its operations based in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

, Star India took over the Indian business and relaunched channels under the unified Star Sports brand in 2013.

History

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

-based

Star TV Star TV may refer to: * E! (Canadian TV channel) (formerly Star!), a Canadian entertainment news channel * Las Estrellas (Spanish for The Stars), the Mexican television network * Estrella TV (Spanish for Star TV), the American Spanish-language net ...

launched Prime Sports (later renamed Star Sports) in partnership with American company TCI, which owned Prime-branded regional sports channels. The channel was broadcast across Asia, including India, as with the footprint of

AsiaSat 7 AsiaSat 7 is a Hong Kong communications satellite, which is operated by the Hong Kong based Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company (AsiaSat). It is positioned in geostationary orbit at a longitude of 105° East of the Greenwich Meridian, ...

. Star TV has since regionalized the channel with several versions. Later, ESPN joined the region as a competitor to Star Sports. ESPN and Star Sports were competing against each other across Asia. But in October 1996, both channels agreed to combine their operations in the region. As a result, a joint venture named

was formed, to be headquartered in Singapore. The joint venture's business in India was managed by its subsidiary, ESPN Software India Private Limited. In June 2012, it was announced that

News Corporation News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Ne ...

would buy

ESPN International ESPN International is a family of sportscasting and production networks around the world. It was begun in 1989, is operated by ESPN Inc. and owned by The Walt Disney Company. Operating regions Latin America Spanish-speaking countries * E ...

's share in ESPN Star Sports. In 2013,

Star India Disney Star Private Limited is an Indian media conglomerate and a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company India. It is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Disney Star network runs more than 70 TV channels in eight languages, reac ...

acquired ESPN Software India from ESPN Star Sports, but kept ESPN brand for a while. ESPN International later established a partnership with what is now

Sony Pictures Networks India Culver Max Entertainment Private Limited, doing business as Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN or SPNI), is an Indian media conglomerate owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment. Culver Max Entertainment manages and operates 26 television channels, ...

in October 2015, and relaunched Sony Kix as

Sony ESPN Sony ESPN was an Indian pay television sports channel which was a joint venture between ESPN Inc. and Sony Pictures Networks India. The channel targeted the Indian subcontinent including India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. It was part of th ...

in January 2016. Sony ESPN was shut down in March 2020. On 11 March 2013, Star Sports 2, a Hindi language sports channel, was launched as a sister channel to Star Sports, Star Cricket and ESPN. On 6 November 2013, Star India relaunched its sports channels under Star Sports brand: Star Sports became Star Sports 1; Star Cricket became Star Sports 3, a Hindi language channel; ESPN became Star Sports 4, a Tamil language channel; Star Cricket HD and ESPN HD became Star Sports HD1 and HD2 respectively. (Star Sports 3 and 4 were later renamed Star Sports 1 Hindi and 1 Tamil, respectively.) This was in contrast to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, where Fox International Channels Asia Pacific relaunched ESPN as Fox Sports on 28 January 2013, and rebranded Star Sports as Fox Sports 2 on 15 August 2014. Star India planned to replace the troubled

Channel V India Channel India was an Indian television channel affiliated to the international Channel V, Channel launched on 27 May 1994, as Channel South Beam on the AsiaSat 2 satellite. The channel owned by STAR India and 21st Century Fox broad ...

with Star Sports 1 Kannada on 16 November 2017, but the delay in regulatory approval meant the plan was postponed. Later, Star India replaced Channel V into the current iteration of Star Sports 3 on 15 September 2018, and launched Star Sports 1 Telugu and Star Sports 1 Kannada as new channels on 7 and 29 December 2018, respectively. In the meantime, the Kannada commentary of Star Sports' coverage of

Indian Premier League The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 franchise cricket league of India. It is annually contested by ten teams based out of seven Indian cities and three Indian states. The leagu ...

was broadcast on

Star Suvarna Star Suvarna is an Indian Kannada language general entertainment pay television channel owned by Disney Star (formerly ''Star India''), a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company India. The channel telecasts Kannada language programmes such as dra ...

Channels

On-air channels

Off-air channels

Programming

References

External links

* {{Prime Network Star Sports Cable television in India Sports television networks in India English-language television stations in India Disney Star Prime Sports Television channels and stations established in 1991 Indian Premier League on television