India's Premier Hockey League Gets Underway

India's Premier Hockey League Gets Underway ESPN STAR Sports Inks 10 Year Deal to Produce, Broadcast And Market PHL Exclusively Agreement Reinforces Broadcaster's Commitment to Growing Sport in Asia SINGAPORE, Jan. 17 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Sports fans in India can look forward to some of the best hockey action after the country's national game moved into a league of its own following a joint agreement between Asia's number one sports broadcaster ESPN STAR Sports and the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) and Leisure Sports Management (LSM). The new league, known as the Premier Hockey League (PHL), launched on 13 January 2005 at the Gachibowli Stadium in Hyderabad, India. Under the terms of the agreement, ESPN STAR Sports will telecast the hockey league live and exclusive for the next 10 years in addition to playing a pivotal role in marketing, producing and broadcasting the League over that period. Said R C Venkateish, Managing Director, ESPN Software India Pvt Ltd, ''We are proud to be associated with India's national game. ESPN STAR Sports has played a key role in developing the overall popularity of sports in India. We have already exposed millions of viewers in India to a variety of sports and now aim to popularise hockey and build PHL as a key sports property. The league was inaugurated by the state CM of Andhra Pradesh on January 13, 2005 and the initial response from the players, fans, viewers and advertising industry has been very favourable. We are bullish about the growth of the League -- we believe the PHL will soon become an established event on India's sporting calendar. With our world-class expertise in covering the world's best sporting events, we are confident our standards will attract strong viewer appeal in India.'' As part of its efforts to promote the sport in India, ESPN STAR Sports has launched a comprehensive marketing plan to develop the League nationwide including initiatives to build a loyal fan base for respective teams at a local level. Venkateish continued, ''We envisage the popularity of PHL to grow as consumers associate with their favourite teams. Our marketing campaign is the result of careful and extensive research into the League. From team names to team colours and programming values, all effort has been taken to create and build consumer affiliations with these teams. With this in place, and with the support we have received from the Indian Hockey Federation, we are certain PHL will become a sporting spectacle in India.'' The League has two tiers consisting of five teams each. Tier 1 will be called the 'Premier Division' while Tier II will be called the 'First Division.' The League will adopt a round robin format where all teams will play each other twice. The winner will be decided on the basis of total points. Starting 13 January 2005, the League will host one Tier 1 match every evening on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday for five consecutive weeks. Interesting elements have been introduced into the PHL to increase viewer interest in the game. For example, each game will have four quarters of 17 minutes 30 seconds each, instead of the usual two halves. In addition, ESPN STAR Sports will also complement its coverage of the matches with two audio feeds providing English and Hindi commentary. The commitment to grow and develop hockey in India sees ESPN STAR Sports continuing its winning streak not just in securing and producing top-flight international sports programming, but also in encouraging the growth of local sports across Asia. The broadcaster recently inked a similar agreement with Taiwan's Super Basketball League in November 2004 to promote the growth of local basketball in the market. ESPN STAR Sports is a 50:50 joint venture between two of the world's leading cable and satellite broadcasters, ESPN Inc. and STAR. We are Asia's complete sports provider reaching over 110 million households for ESPN and over 54 million households for STAR Sports (as of July 2004). We have 13 networks -- ESPN Asia, ESPN India, ESPN Taiwan, ESPN Philippines, MBC-ESPN (Korea), ESPN Singapore, ESPN Hong Kong, STAR Sports Asia, STAR Sports India, STAR Sports Taiwan, STAR Sports Singapore, STAR Sports S.E.A and STAR Sports Hong Kong. We bring the world's premier live sports and leading regional events to viewers 24 hours a day. On the ground, the ESPN STAR Sports Event Management Group manages and promotes premier sporting events around Asia, including the Asian X Games and the San Miguel Asian 9Ball Tour. On-line, espnstar.com, espnstar.com.cn and espnstar.com.tw interact with millions of users providing them with in-depth sports news, results and competitions. This multilingual, online platform which is closely integrated with ESPN and STAR Sports on air networks, has established the sites as the number one on- line sports destination in their respective markets. For further information, please contact: Stephenie Vasko, ESPN STAR Sports Tel: +65-6488-6126 Email: vaskos@espnstar.com Cheryl Sim, ESPN STAR Sports Tel: +65-6488-6134 Email: simc@espnstar.com Source: ESPN STAR Sports CONTACT: Stephenie Vasko, +65-6488-6126, or vaskos@espnstar.com, or Cheryl Sim, +65-6488-6134, or simc@espnstar.com, both of ESPN STAR Sports ------- Profile: International Entertainment