Eleven Sports is looking to recruit a new managing director to head up its operations in Taiwan with incumbent Simone Kang set to leave the Aser Ventures-owned international sports broadcaster in July, SportBusiness understands.
The subscription broadcaster has kicked off a recruitment process as it seeks candidates with significant experience in the digital, media and sports sectors.
Kang became Eleven Sports Taiwan’s managing director in April 2016 and was tasked with expanding the operation, developing strategic partnerships, raising sponsorship revenues and overseeing the network’s day-to-day operations.
Before joining Eleven Sports, Kang was editor-in-chief of production at pay-television channel Fox Sports Taiwan. She worked at ESPN Star Sports between 1998 and 2013, including a spell as head of marketing communications.
Eleven Sports Taiwan launched in 2016. As well as rights to the domestic baseball and basketball leagues, the broadcaster holds rights to the English Premier League and NBA basketball.
Earlier this year, Eleven Sports Taiwan registered strong audiences with its global streams of Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League and Super Basketball League. The competitions were among a group of professional sports leagues worldwide still taking place, with almost all others halted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In April, Eleven showed live coverage of the CPBL’s three-game series between Fubon Guardians and Rakuten Monkeys. Coverage was available within Taiwan on the broadcaster’s linear, OTT and Twitch channels, and also streamed worldwide via the company’s Twitter account @ElevenSportsTW.
Eleven reported that the three live CPBL games generated a total of 3.6 million views on Twitter.
Eleven Sports Taiwan continues to show the CPBL matches domestically via its linear and OTT channels, along with streaming matches globally on Twitter.
The broadcaster’s Premier League rights deal runs from 2019-20 to 2021-22. Eleven’s NBA rights agreement in Taiwan runs from 2017-18 to 2021-22.