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Star Sports Network is a group of Indian pay television sports channels owned by JioStar, The network currently holds rights of flagship tournaments like Indian Premier League, ICC Events, Premier League, ONE Championship, Wimbledon, Indian Super League etc.

The networks were initially formed in 1991 as a joint venture between Star TV and Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI) known as Prime Sports, taking their name from TCI's U.S. regional sports networks of the same name. In 1996, Star agreed to merge its sports networks in Asia with those of its rival ESPN, forming ESPN Star Sports. In June 2012, News Corporation acquired ESPN's stake in the joint venture; its corporate successor 21st Century Fox was, in turn, acquired by ESPN's majority-owner The Walt Disney Company in 2019.

Star Sports is a major broadcaster of cricket in India, holding the pay television rights to domestic national team matches, the Indian Premier League, and International Cricket Council (ICC) tournaments. Streaming rights to many Star Sports properties are held in India by sister streaming service Disney+ Hotstar.

History

Hong Kong-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. Star TV has since regionalized the channel with several versions. Later, ESPN joined the region as a competitor to Star Sports.

In October 1996, Star Sports announced an agreement to merge its operations with those of ESPN International in the region, forming a Singapore-based joint venture known as ESPN Star Sports.

In June 2012, it was announced that Star TV, by then owned by News Corporation, would acquire ESPN's share in ESPN Star Sports. The sale was completed in January 2013. 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 Sports introduced a new brand identity and re-aligned its channels in India; 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, and Star Cricket HD and ESPN HD became Star Sports HD1 and HD2 respectively. In Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, the ESPN Star Sports channels were relaunched by Fox International Channels Asia Pacific as Fox Sports. ESPN International later established a partnership with Multi-Screen Media in October 2015, which rebranded Sony Kix as Sony ESPN in January 2016.

Star India planned to replace the troubled Channel V 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, Kannada commentary of Star Sports' coverage of the Indian Premier League was broadcast on Star Suvarna.

21st Century Fox was acquired by Disney on 19 March 2019, giving it ownership of Star Sports.

Ahead of the 2023 Indian Premier League—whose streaming rights would now be owned by JioCinema—Star Sports announced that it would launch feeds of Star Sports 1 Tamil and Telugu in HD on 15 March 2023. Concurrently, the Bangla and Marathi feeds were discontinued. In June 2023, in response to JioCinema's decision to stream every IPL 2023 match for free, Star Sports and Disney+ Hotstar announced that the 2023 Asia Cup and 2023 Men's Cricket World Cup would stream for free on mobile devices.

Channels

Former channels

Programming

See also

• Fox Sports (Asian TV network)
• Star Sports (East Asian TV channel)

References

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2. Sullivan, Maureen (15 January 1997). "Asian TV team christens venture ESPN Star Sports". Variety. Archived from the original on 11 January 2019. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
3. "Rival sport channels ESPN, Star TV team up together". Advertising Age. 9 October 1996. Archived from the original on 11 January 2019. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
4. Szalai, Georg (6 June 2012). "News Corp. to Buy Out ESPN's Stake in Asian TV Venture". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 8 January 2019. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
5. Steel, Emily (7 June 2012). "News Corp to take over ESPN Star Sports". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 8 January 2019. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
6. Engineer, Tariq (31 January 2013). "As ESPN turns to Fox, expect more local Indian sports programming". Firstpost. Archived from the original on 8 January 2019. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
7. "ESPN STAR Sports to be under STAR in India". Business Standard. 28 January 2013. Archived from the original on 8 January 2019. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
8. "ESPN Star Sports launches new channel". Press Trust of India. 7 March 2013. Archived from the original on 10 January 2019. Retrieved 10 January 2019 – via Mint.
9. "STAR India rebrands; sheds 'ESPN' branding". www.afaqs.com. 6 November 2013. Archived from the original on 14 March 2018. Retrieved 13 March 2018.
10. "Star Sports: A new logo, packaging & brand identity". Indian Television. 8 November 2013. Archived from the original on 10 January 2019. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
11. "Star junks ESPN brand, launches Star Sports with 6 channels and website". MxM. 6 November 2013. Archived from the original on 12 March 2023. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
12. Terrado, Reuben (9 January 2013). "ESPN fades off in Asia as Fox takes over". Spin.ph. Archived from the original on 8 January 2019. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
13. Chan, U-Gene (24 January 2013). "ESPN network to be renamed FOX Sports in Singapore, Asia". The Straits Times. Archived from the original on 8 January 2019. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
14. Christensen, Nic (4 July 2014). "Fox to reorganises its sports channels". Mumbrella Asia. Archived from the original on 8 January 2019. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
15. Valisno, Jeffrey O. (26 August 2014). "Fox completes rebranding of sports channels". BusinessWorld. Archived from the original on 8 January 2019. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
16. "SONY ESPN, SONY ESPN HD to launch on Jan 17th". Exchange4media. Archived from the original on 31 October 2022. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
17. Bansal, Shuchi (16 November 2017). "Star India tuning out of Channel V". Mint. Archived from the original on 3 April 2019. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
18. Bhagia, Raushni (23 August 2018). "Star India to replace Channel V with Star Sports 3". Best Media Info. Archived from the original on 25 August 2018. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
19. "Star to launch Star Sports 3, continue sports investments: Gautam Thakar". Indian Television. 24 August 2018. Archived from the original on 10 January 2019. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
20. "Star India to launch multi-lingual channel Star Sports 3 on 15 Sep". Television Post. 24 August 2018. Archived from the original on 10 January 2019. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
21. "Star Sports 1 Kannada to launch on 29 Dec". Television Post. 21 December 2018. Archived from the original on 11 January 2019. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
22. Sharma, Harsh (21 December 2018). "Star Sports Kannada all set for December 29 launch". InsideSport. Archived from the original on 5 August 2020. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
23. Sharma, Rajender (16 March 2018). "Star Sports Kannada licence awaits clearance; IPL live on Survana". InsideSport. Archived from the original on 3 October 2021. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
24. Szalai, Georg; Bond, Paul (20 March 2019). "Disney Closes $71.3 Billion Fox Deal, Creating Global Content Powerhouse". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 20 March 2019. Retrieved 20 March 2019.
25. Das, Gourab (3 March 2023). "Star Sports isn't going to let Reliance take a 'free hit' in the galactic IPL viewership battle". The Economic Times. ISSN 0013-0389. Retrieved 13 March 2023.
26. Bhadra, Soham (3 March 2023). "Disney Star unfreezes new channel launches, sets 15 March 2023 as launch date". dreamdth.com. Retrieved 13 March 2023.
27. Livemint (9 June 2023). "Disney+ Hotstar allows free streaming of ICC World Cup 2023, Asia Cup". mint. Retrieved 13 June 2023.
28. "Star Sports acquires LPL 2023 TV rights for Indian subcontinent and MENA". The Economic Times. 5 July 2023. ISSN 0013-0389. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
29. "Legends League Cricket 2023 live streaming check LLC full schedule, Date, time, squads - all you need to know". WION. Retrieved 28 November 2023.

External links

• Official website

v t e Sports television in India
Current	1Sports DD Sports Eurosport Sports18 Star Sports Sony Ten
Defunct	Sony Ten Golf NEO Sports NEO Sports Plus NEO Cricket NEO Prime Zee Sports TEN Cricket TEN Action Sony ESPN Sony KIX ESPN India Star Cricket Sony ESPN Sony Six
Online streaming	Sony LIV Disney+ Hotstar Discovery+

• Star Sports
• Prime Sports
• Disney Star
• Cable television in India
• Sports television networks in India
• English-language television stations in India
• Television channels and stations established in 1996
• Indian Premier League on television