ESPN Star Sports Acquires Mobile Rights For India's Tour Of Australia

By Nikhil Pahwa Jan. 3, 2008, 10:24pm 2 Comments

ESPN-STAR Sports (ESS) has acquired the mobile rights of India’s tour of Australia from Cricket Australia, the governing body of Cricket in Australia; this give Mobile ESPN (NYSE: DIS) the right to mobile content including video clips, wallpapers and animation. ESS has declined to comment on the price of the acquisition of the rights, but have confirmed that the mobile rights have been acquired independently of the TV rights, which they also have. ESS is already covering 4 test matches, 15 ODIs and a Twenty20 International on TV. On the mobile, they’ve got http://wap.mobilespn.in, and Mobile ESPN & Star Sports Mobile have video packs priced at Rs. 99 for the test series, as well as on pay-per-download. I just checked the WAP portal, and videos and wallpapers are priced at Rs. 10 each, while animations are for Rs. 15 each. The service is available on Airtel, Vodafone (NYSE: VOD), Idea, BSNL and Aircel, and I was unable to access the subscription content on Airtel.