Baseball coverage to underpin Eleven expansion in Taiwan

International sports broadcaster Eleven Sports will launch cable-television and IPTV channels in Taiwan early next month after boosting its rights portfolio by sealing a deal with the Lamigo Monkeys Chinese Professional Baseball League team.

The Eleven and Eleven Sports channels will be available on the CNS, TBC and TOP platforms to more than three million homes across Taiwan. The channels will run alongside Eleven’s OTT service, which launched in Taiwan in January 2016.

Under the deal with the Lamigo Monkeys, all of the team’s home games will be shown exclusively live on Eleven’s cable-television channels. The length of the multi-year agreement was not disclosed.

Eleven’s channels will also provide live and exclusive coverage of at least 38 games during the 2017 World Baseball Classic, which starts on March 6. The rights deal was agreed in December.