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 List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

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-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, b ...

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, rea ...

(formerly ''Star India''), a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company India. Previously a part of ESPN Star Sports 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, bor ...

, 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 List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

-based Star TV 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 ESPN Star Sports 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 New ...

would buy ESPN International'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, rea ...

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, Sony Pictures Entertainment. Culver Max Entertainment manages and operates 26 televi ...

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 ...

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 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 was broadcast on Star Suvarna.

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