Early years Star Sports In March 1991, HutchVision announced it would jointly operate a sports channel with Denver-based Prime Network International, to be distributed in more than 30 Asian countries, reaching an audience of nearly three billion. Star Sports was first launched on 21 August 1991 as Prime Sports (), and its first broadcast was the
US Open tennis tournament. Operated by Hong Kong–based company Star TV, the channel was a
24-hour multi-sport television channel broadcasting in English and Chinese. It was carried on
AsiaSat 1 and could be reached from the Far East to the Middle East. Star TV later regionalized the service to better serve its audience. On 1 February 1996, the channel changed its logo from the original 1991 design to a box-type Star symbol featuring a frame, a star, and a square. On 1 April 1999, the channel introduced its first major logo redesign, changing from a vertical to a horizontal layout, consistent with other Star TV channels. During this time, the feed was used in both Southeast Asia and the Chinese region (Taiwan and China) until it was split into two dedicated channels on 31 March 2001.
ESPN ESPN was part of the "Gang of Five", a consortium formed with
CNN International,
HBO,
TVB (with
TVB Superchannel), and the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (with
Australia Television International), to compete against Star TV in the region. The group's channels were initially transmitted via the
Palapa satellite, and later also via the
Apstar satellite. ESPN opened its production facility at New Tech Park in
Lorong Chuan,
Singapore, in May 1995.
Operations combined as ESPN Star Sports ESPN and Star Sports were competing with each other across Asia, but their businesses were operating at a loss. In October 1996, both channels agreed to combine their operations in the region. The resulting joint venture, later named ESPN Star Sports, was headquartered in Singapore (where ESPN's operations in Asia were based). On 16 January 1998, a
version of Fox Sports launched in the Middle East, carried by Star Select. This replaced ESPN Star Sports in the region, but the pan-Asian version was available via the
AsiaSat and
Palapa satellites.
Relaunch as Fox Sports On 6 June 2012,
News Corporation announced it would buy
ESPN International's share in ESPN Star Sports. Later,
Star India took over ESPN Star Sports' businesses in India and
relaunched its sports channels under the Star Sports brand on 6 November 2013. In October 2012, Fox Football Channel was launched in
Malaysia. The channel ceased transmission in 2015. On 28 January 2013, ESPN and ESPN HD were relaunched as Fox Sports and Fox Sports Plus HD in Hong Kong,
Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. 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. This rebranding did not affect much of East Asia: a
version of Star Sports continued to broadcast to mainland China and South Korea, and the ESPN feed for
Mainland China was renamed as Star Sports 2 on 10 January 2014. ESPN International has since refocused on its digital business by developing online properties for
football (ESPNFC),
cricket (
CricInfo),
Formula One (ESPNF1), and Australian
rugby union (ESPNscrum), and established a partnership with
Multi Screen Media in India (
Sony ESPN TV channel until 31 March 2020),
TV5 Network in the Philippines (
ESPN5 programming division until 13 October 2021),
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 with the global ESPN website. Fox Sports Asia's social media accounts remained unaffected. On 8 March 2021, Fox Sports partnered with
Emtek's
OTT media service,
Vidio, to make the networks available for Indonesian viewers.
Closure On 18 September 2020, Disney announced that it would shut down Fox Sports operations in Taiwan at the end of 2020. It was later revealed that operations in Taiwan would end on 1 January 2021, following years of financial losses in the region. On 27 April 2021, Disney announced that the Fox Sports network, along with
the rest of the Fox channels, would permanently cease operations on 1 October after 30 years of broadcasting. This move folded the former Prime Sports/Star Sports Asia and ESPN Asia channel spaces as Disney shifted focus to its streaming platform,
Disney+ (or
Disney+ Hotstar in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand; the launch in Vietnam had not yet been announced). taking over the Fox Sports network's place once its transmission went offline; this ensured the remaining MotoGP races were broadcast. They also carried the
Superbike World Championship. Vietnam had no TV broadcaster for MotoGP until SPOTV officially launched on 24 December 2023. Hong Kong pay TV provider
Now TV picked up coverage of the
2021 US Open, the remaining races of the
2021 Formula One World Championship, and future
UFC fights prior to the closure of the Fox Sports network. The remaining coverage of both Formula One and UFC was aired on
Astro in Malaysia on
Astro SuperSport 5 (launched post-closure);
Premier Sports from the
TAP Sports network in the Philippines, which replaced Fox Sports and also secured most of the another rights formerly held by
ABS-CBN's
sports division whose had sharing several rights with Fox Sports until its winddown following the
expiration and subsequent cancellation of legislative broadcast network franchise in 2020;
StarHub TV and
Singtel TV in Singapore (on Hub Sports and Mio Sports); and
TrueVisions'
True Sport in Thailand.
Mola streamed the remaining UFC fights in Indonesia while also sub-licensing to both Singapore and Malaysia for future live fights, including
Dana White's Contender Series; these had not been aired previously when Fox Sports focused on UFC main events. Meanwhile, the
Emtek group aired the remaining Formula One races on Champions TV, O Channel (now
Moji) and their
OTT media service Vidio, which previously carried the Fox Sports network. As reported exclusively by SportBusiness, Formula One coverage in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia (excluding Vietnam, where K+ owned the rights following the channel's closure) transferred to
beIN Sports starting in 2023. beIN Sports also held rights for both the
Australian Open and
French Open (except in Vietnam, where rights were owned by K+ and VTVcab, respectively), while SPOTV, which was already available across Southeast Asia (excluding Vietnam until 24 December 2023 A few days after the closure, Disney relaunched the ESPN brand in Asia as a digital media portal through its official YouTube channel and social media pages. ==Channels==