MUMBAI: Asia’s top pool exponents will join other world masters in Taiwan next month. The World Pool Championships 2004 cue up for the first time in Asia from 10-18 July.

ESPN Star Sports (ESS) is the exclusive Asian broadcaster of the event. Pool enthusiasts can look forward to more than 60 hours of live coverage as telecast of the competition reaches more than 183 million subscribers

ESS will package and produce programming of the event directly from Taipei. Over 13 channels around the world, including BSkyB in the UK, Fox World in the US and Fox Sports in Australia among others, will take this coverage. ESS’ live feed will also be carried on channels in Canada, Japan, Hungary, Holland, Latin America, Russia and Scandinavia.

The host country will be Taiwan. Around 38.8 million cable viewers tuned in to watch last year’s World Professional Pool Championships on Star Sports, In India, Taiwan and Singapore, the event attracted 17 million cable viewers.

ESS has stated that with a growing number of Asian players competing against the world’s best and claiming the World championships the demand for pool programming has grown significantly in the region.

Defending champion Thorsten Hohmann of Germany will be back to defend his title. He will be joined by 127 players from an estimated 40 countries, who will go head to head for the top prize of $75,000 from a total prize purse of $350,000.