Star Sports Network India
# Star Sports Network India

Star Sports Network India, also known as Star Sports India, is a group of Indian pay television sports channels owned by Disney Star, wholly owned by The Walt Disney Company India. It has played a big role in the broadcasting of cricket in India, holding the pay television rights to domestic national team matches, the Indian Premier League, and International Cricket Council (ICC) tournaments with many of the streaming rights to many Star Sports properties being held in India by sister streaming service Disney+ Hotstar.

The channels were originally formed in the early 1990s 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, eventually agreeing to combine their operations in Asia in October 1996 with those of ESPN, forming ESPN Star Sports. In June 2012, News Corporation took the full control of the venture in 2012, as Star India took over ESPN Star Sports' businesses in India in 2013, its corporate successor 21st Century Fox was, in turn, acquired by ESPN's majority-owner The Walt Disney Company in 2019.

## 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.

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 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 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, 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, 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, Star Sports and Disney+ Hotstar announced that Asia Cup and ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup tournaments will be made available as free-to-view to all mobile phone users accessing their application.

## Channels

| Channel | Language | SD/HD Availability | Notes |
| - | - | - | - |
| Star Sports 1 | English | SD+HD | |
| Star Sports 2 | English | SD+HD | |
| Star Sports 3 | English | SD | HD version launching soon |
| Star Sports Select 1 | English | SD+HD | |
| Star Sports Select 2 | English | SD+HD | |
| Star Sports 1 Hindi | Hindi , Gujarati , Marathi | SD+HD | |
| Star Sports First | Hindi , English | SD | |
| Star Sports 1 Kannada | Kannada | SD | HD version launching soon |
| Star Sports 1 Telugu | Telugu | SD+HD | |
| Star Sports 1 Tamil | Tamil | SD+HD | |

### Former channels

| Channel | Language | SD/HD Availability | Notes |
| - | - | - | - |
| Star Cricket | Hindi, English | SD+HD | Replaced by Star Sports 3 |
| ESPN | English | SD+HD | Replaced by Star Sports 4 |
| Star Sports 4 | English | SD+HD | Replaced by Star Sports 1 Tamil |
| Star Sports 1 Bangla | Bengali | SD | Discontinued on 14 March 2023 |
| Star Sports 1 Marathi | Marathi | SD | Discontinued on 14 March 2023 |

## Programming

| Events | Host | Channels | Streaming |
| - | - | - | - |
| Premier Badminton League (2013–2024) | India | Star Sports Select 1 & 2 HD (In English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| CSA T20 Challenge | South Africa | Star Sports Select 2 HD (In English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| Lanka Premier League (2023) | Sri Lanka | Star Sports Select 1 HD (In English) | Only TV rights |
| Andhra Premier League | India | Star Sports 1 Telugu HD | Only TV rights |
| Maharaja T20 Trophy | India | Star Sports 2 HD (In English)Star Sports 1 Kannada HD | Only TV rights |
| Saurashtra Premier League | India | Star Sports 1 & 2 HD (English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| Tamil Nadu Premier League | India | Star Sports 3 (In English)Star Sports 1 Tamil HD | Only TV rights |
| ICC World Test Championship Cricket World Cup Qualifier Cricket World Cup ICC Men's T20 World Cup ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup Women's Cricket World Cup ICC Women's T20 World Cup ICC Under-19 Women's T20 World Cup | Decided by International Cricket Council | Star Sports 1 & 2 HD (In English)Star Sports 3 HD (In Hindi)Star Sports 1 Hindi HDStar Sports 1 Kannada HDStar Sports 1 Tamil HDStar Sports 1 Telugu HDStar Sports Select 2 HD (In English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| Asia Cup Women's Twenty20 Asia Cup ACC Under-19 Asia Cup | Decided by Asian Cricket Council | Star Sports 1 HD (In English)Star Sports 1 Hindi HDStar Sports 1 Kannada HDStar Sports 1 Tamil HDStar Sports 1 Telugu HD | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| Cricket in South Africa (2021–2024) | Decided by CSA | Star Sports 1 HD (In English)Star Sports 1 Hindi HDStar Sports 1 Kannada HDStar Sports 1 Tamil HDStar Sports 1 Telugu HDStar Sports Select 1 & 2 HD (In English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| Cricket in Australia (2023–2030) | Decided by CA | Star Sports 1 HD (In English)Star Sports 1 Hindi HDStar Sports 1 Kannada HDStar Sports 1 Tamil HDStar Sports 1 Telugu HDStar Sports Select 1 & 2 HD (In English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| Indian Premier League (2018–2027) | India | Star Sports 1 & 2 HD (In English)Star Sports Select 1 HD (In English)Star Sports 1 Hindi HDStar Sports 1 Kannada Star Sports 3 English Star Sports 1 Tamil HDStar Sports 1 Telugu HDStar Gold HD (In Hindi) Star Utsav Movies (In Hindi)Vijay Super (Tamil)Star Maa Gold (Telugu)Star Suvarna Plus(Kannada) Asianet plus (Malayalam ) Sunday match | Only TV rights |
| Big Bash League (2023–2030) | Australia | Star Sports 2 HD (In English)Star Sports Select 1 & 2 HD (In EnglishStar Sports 1 Hindi HD (Only weekends) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| Caribbean Premier League (2023) | West Indies | Star Sports 2 HD (In English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| Legends League Cricket (2022) | India | Star Sports 1 HD (In English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| AFC Cup | Decided by AFC | Star Sports 3 (In Bengali, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu) Star Sports Select 1 & 2 HD (In English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| AFC Champions League | Decided by AFC | Star Sports 3 (In Bengali, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu) Star Sports Select 1 & 2 HD (In English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| Indian Super League | India | Star Sports 1 HD (In English)Star Sports 1 Hindi HDStar Sports 3 (In Bengali, Malayalam ,Kannada, Tamil, Telugu)Star Sports Select 1 HD (In English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| Premier League | England | Star Sports 3 (In Bengali, Malayalam, English) Star Sports Select 1 & 2 HD (In English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| 2023 AFC Asian Cup | Qatar | Star Sports 3 (In Bengali, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu) Star Sports Select 1 & 2 HD (In English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| International Hockey Federation | Decided by IHF | Star Sports 1 HD (In English)Star Sports 1 Hindi HDStar Sports Select 1 & 2 HD (In English)Star Sports First (In English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| Formula E World Championship | Decided by Formula E | Star Sports Select 1 & 2 HD | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| Pro Kabaddi League | India | Star Sports 1 & 2 HD (In English)Star Sports 1 Hindi HDStar Sports 1 Kannada HDStar Sports 1 Tamil HDStar Sports 1 Telugu HD | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| ONE Championship | Thailand Singapore | Star Sports Select 1 & 2 HD (In English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
| Wimbledon | United Kingdom | Star Sports Select 1 & 2 HD (In English) | Disney+ Hotstar (India Only) |
