ESPN rebrands in Asia as Fox SPORTS

After much speculation, News Corp has rebranded “ESPN” channels in Asia as “Fox Sports”. News Corp in partnership with Disney has Sports business running under ESPN STAR SPORTS (ESS). But after News Corp took over complete control of ESS by buying shares of Disney, News Corp was looking to rebrand ESPN channels. Now ESPN would be known as FOX SPORTS, ESPN News as FOX SPORTS NEWS, ESPN HD as FOX SPORTS PLUS HD.

India, which is also major market for ESS would not see immediate rebranding for ESPN as Star India, which would control Sports Broadcast biz in India is giving a thought about whether ESPN should rebranded to STAR channel, or continue with international brand i.e. FOX SPORTS.

My guess is News Corp may decide to rename ESPN to FOX SPORTS for non-cricket sports (mainly Football), while Cricket and some other sports could continue on STAR branded channels like STAR SPORTS and STAR CRICKET.

 
Source: Star to take charge of News Corp’s sports biz in India; rest of Asia to be under FIC

Who will broadcast Indian Cricket?

Source

The bidding war for media rights of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)'s matches to be played in India is heating up, with more contenders joining the race. The rights include television, internet and mobile coverage for six years, starting July 2012.
According to BCCI officials, Multi-Screen Media (MSM), which telecasts the Indian Premier League on MAX, has bought the invitation to tender. The network also plans to a launch a new sports channel, Six, this year.
Apart from MSM, ESPN-STAR Sports (ESS), Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL)-led consortium and Reliance-Network18 have picked up tender forms.
An ESS spokesperson said they would not comment on these matters, while BCCL chief executive Ravi Dhariwal said it was an internal matter.
Subhash Chandra's Zee group, which owns sports channels under the TEN umbrella, is believed to be interested in the rights, but is waiting for BCCI to withdraw its case against it.
The bids will have to be given on April 2 in Chennai. "The marketing committee will meet in Chennai to receive and open the bids next Monday," said a BCCI official.

After BCCI has terminated Broadcast deal with Nimbus, BCCI has invited fresh tenders. ESPN-STAR looking to gain the rights which it has been missing for long period. Sony-MSM which already hold BCCI backed IPL rights also looking to grab the rights to boost its newly planned Sports channel SIX. Zee group has case pending against BCCI, so it has restrained itself from bidding currently, but it would also be happy to get rights. Apart from this three, surprising to see BCCL (owners on Times group channels - Times Now, ET Now, Movies Now, Zoom) and Reliance-Network18 (who recently acquired ETV channels). April 2 is the date to watch out for all the happening in biggest broadcast deal in Cricket.

ESPN enters UK

US broadcaster ESPN last night won a £90million contract to show 46 live Premier League games next season.
Espn, owned by Disney, picked up both packages which were put up for auction by the Premier League after they were taken away from Setanta.
And in a separate deal, they also won the rights to screen 23 games for three seasons from 2010 in what is a double blow for Sky.
Sky have long feared ESPN bidding for Premier League rights as the US giant represents a huge threat to their domestic dominance.
Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore said. "ESPN have a formidable worldwide reputation and I am sure we will enjoy a long and fruitful relationship."

So now SKY's dominance in UK's sport broadcast market could come to end after entry of strong player like ESPN. It would be good if ESPN could also get rights of other sporting event like Cricket of UK, so they could offer some refreshing broadcast for UK Cricket