| Star Sports | |
| Owner: | Fox Networks Group Asia Pacific (Disney International Operations) |
| Network: | Fox Sports Asia |
| Replaced By: | SPOTV (South Korea) |
| Headquarters: | Hong Kong SAR, China |
| Country: | China |
| Language: | English |
| Picture Format: | 1080i HDTV (downscaled to 480i/576i for the SDTV feed) |
| Sister Channels: | Mainland China: Star Movies National Geographic |
Star Sports is an East Asian pay television sports channel broadcast to Mainland China and formerly South Korea, operated by Fox Networks Group Asia Pacific, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company (Southeast Asia). It was previously part of the Fox Sports operations in East and Southeast Asia, but this version retained Star Sports name; ESPN Mainland China was instead renamed Star Sports 2.
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, as with the footprint of AsiaSat 1. Star TV has since regionalized the channel with several versions, including a dedicated version for Taiwan. Later, ESPN has joined in the region as a competitor to Star Sports.
In October 1996, ESPN and Star Sports agreed to combine their operations across Asia.[1] As a result, a joint venture named, ESPN Star Sports was formed, to be headquartered in Singapore.[2]
In April 1999, the channel had a first major logo change from vertical to horizontal, along with other STAR TV channels.
In June 2012, it was announced that News Corporation would buy ESPN International's share in ESPN Star Sports.[3] [4] Following the News Corporation take over, ESPN all over Asia would be relaunched as Fox Sports but the relaunch of ESPN Star Sports as Fox Sports did not affect much of East Asia, as Star Sports continued to broadcast in Mainland China and South Korea kept the brand, and instead, the version of ESPN for Mainland China was renamed as Star Sports 2 on 10 January 2014.[5] [6]
Unlike 16 other channels owned by Disney which were shut down in 2021 and 2023, Star Sports China continues to operate until this day.[7]
Sporting events covered by Star Sports include: