Star Sports changed owners repeatedly while cricket stayed its crown jewel
Few television brands have passed through as many hands as Star Sports. It began in 1991 borrowing an American channel name, merged with its fiercest rival, was bought out by Rupert Murdoch's empire, then fell to Disney. Throughout, Indian cricket kept it at the centre of the country's sporting life.
Hong Kong-based Star TV launched the network in 1991 as Prime Sports, a partnership with the American cable company TCI, whose regional sports channels in the United States carried the Prime name. Beamed by satellite across Asia, India included, it was later renamed and split into regional versions. When ESPN arrived as a competitor, the two chose cooperation: in October 1996 they merged their Asian sports operations into ESPN Star Sports, a joint venture based in Singapore.
The partnership lasted until June 2012, when News Corporation, which by then owned Star, agreed to buy out ESPN's half, completing the deal in January 2013. A Hindi-language Star Sports 2 followed that March, and in November 2013 the Indian channels were reshuffled under a single identity, with Star Cricket and ESPN renamed as numbered Star Sports channels. Elsewhere in Asia the old ESPN Star Sports feeds became Fox Sports. Regional expansion continued with Tamil, Telugu and Kannada channels.
Ownership then circled back. Disney, which already controlled ESPN, acquired 21st Century Fox on 19 March 2019 and with it Star Sports. Today the network belongs to JioStar, a joint venture between Viacom18 and Disney India, and carries International Cricket Council events, the Indian Premier League, home internationals, English Premier League football and Wimbledon, with sister service JioHotstar handling much of the streaming.
Competition sharpened in 2023, when streaming rights to the IPL went to JioCinema, which then showed every match free. Star responded by launching high-definition Tamil and Telugu feeds and, with Disney+ Hotstar, making that year's Asia Cup and men's Cricket World Cup free to stream on phones.
Source: Star Sports (India)
