(3 June 2008 8:00 pm)

MUMBAI: ESPN Star Sports has launched a new version of its website www.espnstar.com with new features and creative opportunities for advertisers.

The website will bring together expert analysis from ESPN Star Sports’ stable of sports presenters in the form of editorial columns, blogs and podcasts.

In addition, sports fans can also avail real time updates on the latest sports news, results, statistics, player and team updates and live scores of key sports from across the globe.

Another highlight is the new, embedded video player which delivers news and updates along with programme highlights from ESPN Star Sports’ original productions.

ESPN Star Sports MD Manu Sawhney said, “As Asia’s leading sports broadcaster, we are committed to serving our fans by providing them with the most comprehensive and entertaining sports content across multiple platforms and the new espnstar.com complements our broadcast and mobile offerings. It is an important initiative for us at it helps us in engaging our viewers beyond our broadcast channels and at the same time creating more business opportunities for our partners in terms of increased flexibility in effectively targeting and communicating with the audiences across markets and better meeting the brand communication objectives.”

The new www.espnstar.com contains user-friendly layout, with web pages categorized by sport and that serves different geographic requirements in a customized manner to target specific audiences.

Content will be tailored according to regional sports preferences, such that visitors from South East Asia will see more football content and visitors from India will see more cricket-related content.

The website will offer a comprehensive coverage of the upcoming Euro 2008, with an extensive line-up of features including live score updates, daily updates on teams and players, expert match predictions, match previews and analysis, post-match podcasts by ESPN’s resident football pundit Steve McMahon, former Liverpool midfielder and England International and exclusive video clips of special programmes and updates for Euro 2008.

The website will also continue extensive coverage of the upcoming Wimbledon Championships and Asia Cup cricket tournament in July.