MUMBAI: Pan-Asian sports broadcaster ESPN Star Sports (ESS) is busy beefing up its content line-up by acquiring new properties. It has snapped up exclusive broadcast rights for all Football Association (FA) Cup matches, The FA Community Shield and all Senior and Under-21 England Team home matches for the next six years until 2018 for the South Asia Region including India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Maldives, Bhutan and Nepal.

The rights were earlier held by Sony Pix, the English movie channel from Multi Screen Media stable.

The multimedia platform deal, which allows the content to be made available across television, internet and mobile, was made with international media rights company MP & Silva. The FA Cup is recognised as the oldest and most famous domestic knockout competition, which traditionally begins in November and culminates with the Final in May.

Starting from 3 November, ESS will begin broadcast of the first round of matches all the way up to the Final in May next year. Chelsea are currently the holders of the FA Cup but are likely to be challenged for the prestigious title by the other Premier League teams including Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City, among others.

With this acquisition, ESS?s football line-up will include the Barclays Premier League, the Spanish Liga BBVA as well as the Italian Serie A, whose exclusive broadcast rights were recently secured from MP & Silva.

ESS MD Peter Hutton said, "Having a season round offering of football is at the heart of our dominance of the Indian sports market, and the unique stories that the FA Cup creates every year is a very welcome part of our line-up. The FA Cup was seen in India long before the Premier League and the other European leagues, and we?re very proud to be able to continue the tradition."

"We are excited to work with ESPN STAR Sports who will continue to provide excellent exposure for the England Team and The FA Cup on a multi-platform basis in key Asian markets. These markets are important to us and we?re going to be putting together some exciting initiatives in India in particular, including bringing The FA Cup out to the sub-continent," The FA Group Commercial Director Stuart Turner.

Every year, ESS broadcasts up to 2,500 hours of live football content for the South Asian region from the world?s biggest leagues, and is supported by ESS-produced football programmes such as The Verdict, Scorecast, BPL Express, Goals, Full Time Action and Football Extra, Primetime Premier League, Super Sunday, catering to the demands of a varied football audience.