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MUMBAI:
ESPN Star Sports (ESS) will air its first sports animation
series on Star Sports across Asia from 2 February 2009.
Sponsored
by Caltex, the show will air every Monday at 7 pm and will
be repeated on Saturdays at 11.30 am. There will be 13 half-hour
episodes of the animated football series.
Targetted
at youths, the broadcaster says that the show complements Star Sports’ brand
of sports entertainment as a feel-good story of a young boy, Shakes, who realises
and lives his dream against all odds, bringing a message of hope and inspiration
to young kids and adults alike across the globe.
The
animated television series follows the fortunes of the Supa
Strikas F.C. as Shakes and his teammates take on the world’s
best teams in the Super League.
ESS
adds that the programme adds a new dimension to its line-up of football programming,
which broadcasts top properties such as the Barclays Premier League, Uefa Champions
League, FA Cup, AFC Football tournaments as well as shows like Football Focus
and Nokia Football Crazy. Supa
Strikas started off as one-minute animated shorts that were first aired in
South Africa in late 2006, and became a huge success across various regions. This
ultimately led to the development of the full animation series, which has been
watched by more than 10 million people around the globe. The
Supa Strikas animation series has been broadcast across other Caltex and
Texaco countries in Africa and Latin America where Chevron sponsors the programme.
The
animated television series started broadcasting in South Africa
in November 2008 and is currently showing in South Africa,
Namibia, Botswana, Colombia, Panama, El Salavador, Nigeria
and Kenya. The programme has been dubbed into Bahasa Melayu
and was launched in Malaysia in December 2008.
The
Asia broadcast of Super Strikas comes just as the world gears up for two
years of soccer madness with the Confederations Cup in 2009 and Fifa World Cup
in 2010, which will be staged on African soil for the first time. | 
