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.
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 until 31 March 2020), 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).
On 31 March, 2020, the website of Fox Sports Asia merged into and redirected to global version of ESPN website.[17]
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,[18] and later expanded to other areas, including Hong Kong, where it was launched in August 2011 on PCCW's Now TV.[19] 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:
In South Korea, Fox Sports was partnered with JTBC until 11 March 2020, 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.
