Originally launched in early 1990s as Star Sports (earlier Prime Sports) and ESPN by Star TV and ESPN International respectively, both parties have agreed to combine their operations in Asia in October 1996. News Corporation took the full control of the venture in 2012, and relaunched the channels in two phases in January 2013 and August 2014, respectively.
History
Early years
Star Sports
Star Sports was originally launched as Prime Sports on 21 August 1991. Star TV, based in Hong Kong, operated the channel in partnership with TCI in the United States, which owned Prime-branded regional sports channels there. The channel was broadcast across the continent of Asia, reaching from the Far East to the Middle East, as with AsiaSat 1's footprint. Star TV have since regionalised the channel.
ESPN and Star Sports were competing each other across Asia,[2] but their businesses were making loss. In October 1996, both channels have agreed to combine their operations in the region.[3] The resulting joint venture, later named ESPN Star Sports, was to be headquartered in Singapore (where ESPN's operations in Asia was based in).[4]
In October 2012, Fox Football Channel was launched in Malaysia.[11] The channel ceased transmission in 2015.
On 28 January 2013, ESPN and ESPN HD was relaunched as Fox Sports and Fox Sports Plus HD in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia.[12][13] The regional version of ESPNews was relaunched as Fox Sports News, and SportsCenter Asia was relaunched as Fox Sports Central.
On 15 August 2014, Star Sports was rebranded as Fox Sports 2, and Fox Sports Plus HD was renamed Fox Sports 3 (or Fox Sports HD in Vietnam). The corresponding HD and SD versions of all three channels were also launched.[14][15]
ESPN International has since refocused on its digital business building out online properties for football (ESPNFC), cricket (CricInfo), Formula 1 (ESPNF1), and Australian rugby union (ESPNscrum),[16] and established partnership with Multi Screen Media in India (Sony ESPN TV channel), TV5 Network in the Philippines (ESPN5 programming division), Tencent in Mainland China (a dedicated ESPN section at qq.com), and Mediacorp in Singapore (local ad sales only for the ESPN website through its Partner Network division).
Fox Sports 2 (formerly Prime Sports and Star Sports)
Fox Sports 3 (formerly ESPN HD and Fox Sports Plus HD)
Former channels
"Fox Football Channel" redirects here. For the Aussie rules channels in Australia, see Fox Footy and Fox Footy Channel. For the association football channels in the United States, see Fox Soccer and Fox Soccer Plus.
Fox Sports News (formerly ESPNews): The channel was first launched as ESPNews in November 2009 in Singapore on Singtel's Mio TV,[17] and later expanded to other areas, including Hong Kong, where it was launched in August 2011 on PCCW's Now TV.[18] The channel was renamed as Fox Sports News on 28 January 2013. The channel was gradually discontinued in 2017: It ceased broadcasting on 1 April 2017 in most areas, but continued until 24 April in Hong Kong, 3 May in Malaysia, and 31 May in Taiwan.
Fox Football Channel: The channel was launched in October 2012 in Malaysia.[11] Its programming was mainly consisted of association football matches and shows. It ceased broadcasting in 2015.
Regions
The individual regional variations of Fox Sports channels include:
Malaysia and Brunei: This variant does not provide coverage of field hockey events.
Philippines: Primetime telecast of WWE Raw is airing on FOX Sports every Tuesday evening, several hours after the live stream on FOX+ app. Starting 2019 selected UFC events on FOX Sports are aired (but not UFC Fight Night), but can still watch via FOX+ app and web.[19]
Singapore
Vietnam
In addition to regions above, Fox Sports' regional headquarters in Singapore also oversees Fox Sports channels in Taiwan, which is transmitted by Fox Networks Group Taiwan and produced from the studios in Taipei. It also oversees a version of Star Sports broadcast to Mainland China and South Korea, and Star Sports 2 (formerly known as ESPN until 31 December 2014) broadcast to Mainland China.
In South Korea, Fox Sports is partnered with JTBC, which operates JTBC3 Fox Sports. As ESPN Star Sports, it has previously partnered with MBC (MBC ESPN) from 2001 until July 2010, and SBS (SBS ESPN) from December 2010 until 2013.
Programming
Broadcast rights for various sports properties contain territorial limitations and in a lot of instances, the rights indicated below may not pertain to all Asian territories in which Fox Sports operates.
