ISL is being telecast in 23 languages

The effort is an attempt to expand the reach of the Indian Super League across the globe.

Plans to take the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) - that began on October 12 - to a global audience are underway.

The matches are being aired across five continents and in 18 different languages, other than the five languages that the league is being telecast in, in India.

This sort of global distribution plan makes the ISL the first Indian football event to be broadcast at such a large scale.

Through the European broadcasting major Eurosport, the league will be telecast widely in Continental Europe. Football fans in the UK will be able to catch the action on Star Gold, which is readily accessible to all TV viewers as part of base packs in that country.

Besides, the league will also be telecast in Canada, the United States, West Asia, North Africa, South Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Indian Sub-Continent, South East Asia and Australia, through broadcasters such as ATN, Fox Sports, OSN and Supersport, among others.

The agreement will put sports fans around the world in the box seat to witness the birth of India as a footballing nation, Star India said in a press statement.

"We are extremely delighted to take the Hero Indian Super League to a global audience. The league is a collaborative effort by IMG-Reliance and Star India that brings together the best of international footballing talent, and we are confident that sports fans across the world will enjoy watching the arrival of India on the global footballing scene," said Sanjay Gupta, COO, Star India.

The ISL has the potential to reach around 85 per cent of India's television audience, the company said. The plan to take it overseas, expands the league's reach to cover nearly three quarters of the global audience.

The international line up of the Hero Indian Super League includes big ticket names like Alessandro Del Piero, Joan Capdevila, Marco Materazzi, and members of the Arsenal team Robert Pires and Freddie Ljungberg.

The ISL will contested by eight franchises and will see 61 matches over 70 days.

This tournament is being telecast live on eight channels of the Star network, namely, Star Sports 2 (English), Star Sports 3 (Hindi), Star Sports HD 2 (English), Star Gold (Hindi), Star Utsav (Hindi), Asianet Movies (Malayalam), Jalsha Movies (Bengali) and Suvarna Plus (Kannada).

It is also being aired live on www.starsports.com.

Joining Hero MotoCorp as the 'title sponsor', is Maruti Suzuki which has signed up as the 'associate sponsor'. PepsiCo India, Amul, The Muthoot Group, Puma and Dr Reddy's Nise Ge have signed up as the official partners of the league.