ESPN to cover cricket. (17 Oct 95)

ESPN, the US-based sports network channel, joined India`s Modi Entertainment`s Group (MEN) on Monday to launch a much-delayed television channel hit by satellite snags and courtroom tussles. ESPN executives overcame 12 months of delays to get the network`s first country-specific channel launched. The network first had to fight a court contest with India`s state-run Doordarshan over the right to buy broadcast rights for local cricket tournaments.

Then, with the explosion of the Apstar-2 satellite last year, which would have beamed ESPN`s programmes, prospects for its first 24-hour sports network in India seemed to vanish.

Steven Bornstein, president of ESPN and vice-president of parent Capital Cities/ABC Inc, said the delay was worth it. ``After two years of arduous planning this is an emotional moment for our pioneering effort in sports television,`` he told reporters in India`s financial centre, Bombay. ``We are hoping to reach every home with a cable link-up by next year,`` R.K. Singh, ESPN`s India chief, told. That means 14 million homes, and an estimated 100 million viewers who would offer ESPN a potential for tidy profit from a distribution network for which cable operators would pay, network officials said.

Indian viewers would in turn get a bonanza that includes 159 days worth of live domestic and international cricket and 4,800 hours of live programming every year in various sports. ESPN expects to add commentary in India`s main Hindi language by the end of the year. Sporting bodies have had jingling cash registers since New Delhi allowed foreign channels to buy up rights to domestic sporting events in 1992.

``I remember when the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) got $200,000 from a foreign channel for a one-day international against South Africa in 1991,`` said Human Resource Development Minister Madhavrao Scindia, who once headed the cricket board. ``We thought that was so much money at the time. But, of course, it was peanuts. But it made the government realise that there`s so much money around for sports today.`` Scindia said a contract between ESPN and BCCI signalled a chance for Indian sport to be free from the government`s apron strings. ``No sport can survive on government subsidies,`` said I. S. Bindra, a senior BCCI official. ``Now domestic sports can sign up and actually make money.``

Doordarshan has enjoyed a state monopoly on domestic sports for years, arousing criticism for its dour television coverage. Rupert Murdoch`s Prime Sports, beaming through its Hong Kong-based Star TV, has offered a choice, but it has been limited in its access to domestic sports coverage. ESPN is predicted to change that. ``With television as the main medium for marketing sport and with ESPN as the main marketing vehicle, sport in India will be revolutionised,`` Bindra said.