MUMBAI: Dubai-based sports broadcaster Ten Sports declared today that they have set up their own in-house distribution team and are managing the distribution side of the business independently.

The "clarification" was made in response to rumours in the industry that Ten Sports was likely to hitch its distribution activity to the Zee Group stable following its recent split from Modi Entertainment Network.

The statement issued by Ten today states: "Any rumours of the channel joining or aligning with the Zee Turner bouquet or forming a distribution JV with Zee are completely false. Any pricing offers made by Zees distribution team or its distributors, involving the selling of the Ten Sports channel as a part of an alignment with the Zees bouquet or Zees sports channel are baseless."

With the upcoming Pakistan-India hockey series and the tri-series in Pakistan involving Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe round the corner, the Ten Sports distribution team is working closely with distributors and cable trade on the ground, the statement adds.

After its break with MEN, the question that has been doing the rounds is on whether it would ally with Zee or the Sony-Discovery distribution platform.