October 1996
A Singapore-based joint venture was created between Star TV’s Asian sports operations and ESPN International, trading as ESPN Star Sports.
India has thirteen years of ESPN history and no ESPN. Search results are full of real, accurate pages about ESPN Star Sports — and every one of them describes a joint venture that ended in January 2013.
There is no ESPN-branded channel or streaming service in India. ESPN Star Sports was a genuine joint venture from October 1996 until January 2013, when News Corp bought out ESPN’s stake; on 6 November 2013 Star India rebranded the network and the ESPN channel itself became Star Sports 4. What exists today is the Star Sports Network, owned by JioStar. A residential US IP does not give you an Indian ESPN, because there is not one to give.
This is the trap worth naming explicitly, because a careful researcher falls into it more easily than a careless one.
A Singapore-based joint venture was created between Star TV’s Asian sports operations and ESPN International, trading as ESPN Star Sports.
News Corporation, then Star’s owner, acquires ESPN’s stake. The joint venture ends.
Star India rebrands the whole network and the ESPN name disappears. The ESPN channel becomes Star Sports 4.
Star Sports 4 becomes Star Sports 1 Tamil. The last thread back to the ESPN channel is cut.
ESPN Star Sports was not a rumour or a rebrand that never happened. It ran for seventeen years, it broadcast cricket that people still remember, and the pages describing it are accurate. They are simply describing the past.
A guide that tells you to “unblock ESPN India” is usually built on those sources. There is nothing to unblock: the channel was renamed in 2013 and the brand has not returned.
Owned by JioStar, the Viacom18 and Disney India joint venture. Operates across multiple languages.
Where the cricket rights most Indian searchers are actually looking for now sit.
ESPN Select and ESPN Unlimited are United States products. There is no Indian equivalent and no Indian tier.
If the thing you want is Indian cricket, a US IP address moves you further away from it, not closer: those rights are Indian, and the American ESPN does not hold them.
The agreement below is the American one. There is no Indian equivalent to compare it against, which is the whole point of this page.
“The ESPN and Hulu Services are only available in the United States and certain of its territories.”
Disney+, ESPN, and Hulu Subscriber Agreement, effective 5 February 2026
That is the service that still exists. The Indian ESPN that search results keep describing was a joint venture, it ended in January 2013, and no agreement governs it because it is not there to govern.
The travel clause names the Disney+ Service specifically, which is worth noticing before assuming it covers ESPN:
“This Agreement applies if you purchase a subscription to the Disney+ Service in the U.S. and any supported U.S. territories and use it in other geographic locations where the Disney+ Service is made available.”
Same agreement, effective 5 February 2026
Disney+ Hotstar and its successor are separate products under separate terms. Quoting the American ESPN agreement at an Indian streaming service would be a category error, and a common one.
There is no rupee price for ESPN because there is no Indian ESPN. These are the American figures, in dollars.
$139.99 per year
$319.99 per year
These are ESPN’s standalone US prices, checked 20 September 2026. They rose on 17 September 2026; subscribers from before 20 August 2026 keep the old price until their first billing date after that.
Be particularly careful with old Indian pricing pages. The Disney+ Hotstar era produced a lot of rupee figures that are still indexed and are years out of date; none of them was ever a price for ESPN.
With no Indian ESPN in existence, this list is unusually short on the left-hand side and unusually blunt on the right.
In India the first step saves the other three more often than in any other market on this site.
If it is cricket, the rights are Indian and sit with JioHotstar and Star Sports. A US IP address moves you away from them, not towards them.
There is not one. The ESPN channel was renamed Star Sports 4 on 6 November 2013 and the brand has not returned. Anything promising to unblock it is describing 2012.
Only for the American service. Confirm the address reads as United States before loading ESPN, and use a browser rather than an app store.
An account error and a location error are different. So is a guide written during the ESPN Star Sports era, which will be confidently wrong.
Indian app stores do not carry an Indian ESPN app, because there is no Indian ESPN. What they carry is JioHotstar, which is a different service entirely.
The cleanest test, because no store sits between you and the American site.
Same order of operations; browsers occasionally differ at playback.
An Indian Apple Account will not offer the American ESPN app, and a US IP does not change that.
Google Play country follows payment history, which in India is usually firmly Indian.
A missing ESPN app in an Indian store is a store-country result, not a verdict on your connection.
These four walkthroughs were recorded in October 2022 and show the American ESPN+ signup flow, now sold as ESPN Select. There is no Indian equivalent to walk through.
Relevant only for the American service. Same residential US connection on every plan; the difference is how long you keep it.
1 Month Pass
€9.99 each month after the 3-day trial.
6 Month Pass
Billed €44.94 every six months after the 3-day trial.
12 Month Pass
Billed €71.88 each year after the 3-day trial.
3-day free trial · 14-day money-back guarantee · cancel any time
You can reach the American ESPN service that way. There is no Indian ESPN to reach by any means, and the cricket most Indian searchers want sits with JioHotstar under Indian rights.
No. ESPN+ was renamed ESPN Select, with ESPN Unlimited above it. Indian guides citing ESPN+ are usually older than the rename, and some are older than the 2013 exit.
The agreement is linked in full below and quoted selectively here. Read the clauses that apply to your own account rather than any summary, including this one.
Not as an ESPN-branded channel or service. The ESPN Star Sports joint venture ended in January 2013, and on 6 November 2013 the ESPN channel was renamed Star Sports 4. The network today is Star Sports, owned by JioStar.
It is probably accurate about a period that ended. ESPN Star Sports ran from 1996 to 2013 and is well documented. Check the date on anything you read: a 2012 page about ESPN in India was true when it was written.
On JioHotstar and the Star Sports Network, both under JioStar. Those are Indian rights. A US IP address does not reach them, and the American ESPN does not carry them either.
ESPN’s own terms say the service is only available in the United States and certain of its territories. The network location is one requirement among several — account creation and payment are separate, and this page does not pretend otherwise.
Every load-bearing claim on this page links to the page it came from. Prices and rights move; the sources are the thing to trust.
ESPN’s own current standalone monthly and annual prices.
Open ESPN Support →The full agreement, effective 5 February 2026, including the availability clause quoted above.
Read the agreement →The company that owns the Star Sports Network and JioHotstar today.
Open JioStar →ESPN, Disney+ and Hulu are third-party services and are not affiliated with USip VPN. Prices, availability, devices and content rights can change.