The new Fox Sports Asia turned one in August, celebrating with a Bundesliga kick, leaving the La Liga loss in the dust, and racing forward with robust and rounded sports offerings designed to add partner value.

The new Fox Sports celebrated its first birthday mid-August with a mixed slate of newly acquired rights topped by Germany’s Bundesliga, renewals such as Wimbledon, the Australian Open and Formula One, and – maybe most critically – a commitment to a robust year-round sports programming proposition.

On the eve of the high-anxiety English Premiere League (EPL) tender for Asia, the Fox International Channels (FIC) brand seems to be continuing to resist playing rights whack-a-mole with would-be rivals, focusing instead on a sustainable model designed to be the lynchpin of strong and broad sports packages, year round, across platforms in the region.

At the same time, few are averting their gaze from the breathtaking bets being made by sports outfits seeking a share of local and regional subscription revenue.

The Qatar-backed BeIn Media Group, which hoovered up La Liga rights formerly held by FIC across major territories in Asia, leads the pack. Eyes, too, are on new global player Eleven Sports Network, which has just launched two channels – football channel Eleven and Eleven Sports – on Singtel TV in Singapore.

There’s also Discovery’s Eurosport, which bought Setanta Sports Asia earlier this year along with exclusive media rights (believed to have cost up to US$15 million, with an US$8 million return from the market) for the Champion’s League in Singapore.

BeIn has been described by analysts Media Partners Asia (MPA) as “a potentially powerful and disruptive force” with a “blitzkrieg campaign” to secure its sports stake in specific markets as well as across the region. Market speculation at presstime was that former Discovery head, Tom Keaveny, was heading back to Asia to lead the BeIn charge across the region.

“BeIn is putting some serious coin down, and really operating without fear to redraw the sports rights landscape,” MPA quotes a senior source at a key rights-holder as saying.

Sports channels also face new competition for rights from platforms in specific markets. In Hong Kong, for instance, aggressive new playerLeTV may have paid upwards of US$400 million – and potentially up to US$600 million – for Hong Kong rights to the next three EPL seasons. If market speculation is correct, this represents a 100% increase at least over the estimated US$200 million paid by PCCW last round. To head off LeTV’s aggressive game, PCCW fought back on La Liga in Hong Kong, paying a rumoured US$15 million to US$20 million per season.

Insiders say that, apart from Fox Sports, none of the wannabe sports TV powerhouses have managed to create a sustainable offering in Asia with a wide variety of sports for a broad audience – yet. A key component being talked about is the value being offered to platforms. Sports programmers say some of the players are very much about buying rights and selling these back to the platforms with little or no apparent investment in marketing back to the platforms. The question is: How sustainable this is?

At the one-year mark, Fox Sports’ bosses say they have proved that the rebrand wasn’t “just a new coat of paint”.

“Our track record has shown that when a property is on the FIC network, its reach grows exponentially, which can only have a positive effect for affiliates,” says Rohit D’Silva, FIC’s executive vice president, commercial. He backs this up with figures that show a 93% increase in the AFF Suzuki Cup 2014’s reach in Malaysia over 2012; a 12% reach increase to 14 million viewers for Roland Garros 2015 compared to 2014; and a 29% increase in Wimbledon viewership this year to 14.2 million viewers over 2014.

Fox Sports’ crown jewel right now is Germany’s Bundesliga football league, which leads new acquisitions in the past year along with LPGA ladies golf, Rugby World Cup 2015 and the UEFA Euro League for Hong Kong.

D’Silva says the sports network has put unprecedented fire power behind the Bundesliga launch in August with, among other initiatives, more than 25,000 spots across the FIC network along with the first 60-second “live simulcast” of a Bundesliga match during promo breaks on FIC’s non-sports channels, including Star World, Fox, Fox Movies Premium and Star Chinese Channel.

Renewals in the past year include the F1, with extended rights for Japan; Australian Open tennis; Wimbledon (tennis); The Masters Tournament (golf); and the U.S. Open golf with rights extended to cover Korea.

D’Silva points to the focus on localisation with, among others, the Badminton World Federation (BWF) in Indonesia, the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) and Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) in Taiwan.

FIC’s game plan also includes partnerships with local players such as JTBC in South Korea. The co-branded sports channel, JTBC3 Fox Sports, will carry a mix of international and local sports, all fully localised in Korean. The international line-up includes Bundesliga, Formula One, the Australian Open, Roland Garros and Wimbledon tennis grand slams. At the time, FIC Asia Pac/Middle East president, Zubin Gandevia, said the Korean service “completes our sports brand’s APAC footprint”.

D’Silva says Fox Sports has its eyes wide open for additional partnerships in the region with both pay-TV and free-to-air networks.

Supporting its content strategy, Fox Sports has rolled out robust multi-platform/online initiatives, maximising spend on rights with investment in digital delivery technology. OTT player, Fox Sports Play, is carried on six major Southeast Asia pay-TV platforms. Fox Sports also provides content to the Philippines’ PLDT Group’s mobile/TV/broadband subscribers and to Samsung Sportsflow. FIC’s aim is to enhance its OTT services “with more content, including exclusive content, and more control for sports fans”.

But perhaps the biggest distance Fox Sports has put between itself and its predecessor, ESPN Star Sports, is in attitude. “Fox Sports has become part of a sports community, they aren’t pretending that platforms don’t need anyone else. They’ve looked at what they have, gone after certain sports they feel provide quality, and are promoting an all-round offering,” says one indie observer, adding: “The fact of the matter is that other regional channels don’t do that. That allows Fox Sports to maintain a primary position”.

This article first appeared in ContentAsia Issue 4, 2015, published in September 2015