IRISH PAY TV broadcaster Setanta Sports was dealt a blow yesterday when the English Premier League announced that from the 2010/11 season the Dublin-based broadcaster would retain just one of the two packages of live UK rights that it currently holds. Setanta has retained the right to show 23 games on Saturday evenings in Britain from August 2010 but has lost its coverage of Monday night games to satellite rival BSkyB. Setanta will pay £159 million for its package, which will cover three seasons. In 2006, the Irish broadcaster broke Sky’s monopoly on live Premier League rights by paying £392 million for exclusive coverage of 46 matches. The Premier League confirmed yesterday that Sky had won rights to five of the six packages of live games that were auctioned among broadcasters. Sky is paying £1.623 billion for 115 matches, which includes all the top matches. Under EU rules, Sky is prevented from owning more than five of the six packages. In total, the Premier League secured £1.782 billion for its live rights in the UK, 5 per cent more than its previous three-year deal. In a statement, Niall Cogley, chief executive of Setanta Sports Ireland, said: “While it is obviously disappointing that our UK business has lost one of its packages, they will be buoyed by the fact that they beat stiff international competition to regain rights.” ESPN, which is owned by Walt Disney, said it bid for the rights and was disappointed to lose out. Setanta, which was founded by Irishmen Leonard Ryan and Michael O’Rourke, will be disappointed to have lost out to Sky on one of its rights packages. Securing them three years ago provided Setanta with a platform to build its premium subscriber base to its current level of 1.5 million and prompted some analysts to value the company at £1 billion. Maintaining these customers will be more challenging with a diminished portfolio of Premier League games, although Setanta does hold rights to live FA Cup and England matches. It is understood Setanta will raise the £159 million from current shareholders, which include private equity firms Doughty Hanson and Balderton Capital. The spotlight now switches to the auction of international rights, including those for Ireland. In 2006, Sky and Setanta were awarded “mirror” rights for Ireland, with the Dublin-based group also getting the nod to show 33 live games here on Saturday afternoons. About £30 million was paid by Sky and Setanta for the Irish rights in 2006. Tender documents for Ireland are expected to be circulated in the coming weeks. “It is important to realise that the Premier League tender in Ireland has not yet begun and that we are hopeful of being able to retain our current portfolio of 79 live matches,” Mr Cogley said. This would indicate that Setanta will seek to win the Irish rights for Monday night games, which have been awarded to Sky in the UK. With 580,000 subscribers here, Sky is expected to make a concerted effort to win the Irish rights to the five packs it has won for the British market. This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times
Setanta to be bought by ESPN in the coming months according to the Sunday Business Post a short while back. How will this affect the 3 o clock games that are shown on Setanta Ireland,are they still going to be on?
Its only for the UK rights the Irish ones are not up for grabs just yet. Looks like the only way ESPN can get in on the action to buy a smaller company but its bad news for Setanta as losing the deal will decrease the value.
thats why Setanta fought so hard for the UFC and Boxing.Having non pay per view big fights and a massively popuiar new sport makes it very attractive. Very surprised ESPN was outbid for the football,they also lost out in the German football rights.Must have really underestimated SKY'S pockets. It will make for an interesting purse fight the next time
setanta are finished in my opinion they charge £12.99 a month in the uk for 2 premier league packages that will have to be cut in half in 2 years time cause they only have one now, with sky having all the big games people just wont bother with it and hit the pub for the 2 or 3 times their respective team will be on it
dont think so imo. Scottish football till 2013 Formula one Guiness Premiership rugby 43 live games UFC Boxing(with the possibilty of a British Heavyweight Champion of the world Cricket Horse Racing Fa Cup England Internationals And if espn comes in then you factor in the coverage of US Sports
they have approx1.5m subscribers in the uk andf the vast majority of them subscribe for the premiership not any off the above. yes there will be people who sign up for the above sports but doubt it in the numbers that will be required to finance it all as ive said football fans wont pay £12.99 a month for 23 games a season
i reckon(and i could be wrong)but spending 1.7billion on soccer is insane for sky and will hit the rest of their sports. Boxing will take a hit,hence we see sky charging 20-30 quid for an amir khan fight while a higher level of fight is on Setanta due to the Top Rank deal. Also Sky backed the wrong horse in Khan and not David Haye. Cricket is available on both channells. Rugby is a big one for sky and their coverage is cut in more than half. I expect more sports being open to the beeb,itv and setanta with sky pulling out all the stops for the premiership.
I dont think it will effect us that much as this is Setanta 1 & 2, Sky have just gotten back their rights for the Monday games. The 3pm Saturday games are still up for grabs and as Sky and all UK channels are banned from showing 3pm games Setanta will hang on to the 3pm kick offs so Saturdays wont change too much. It will be interesting to see if Sky try to bring Prem Plus back now they have 5 of the 6 packages. I also dont think ESPN underestimated Sky or Setanta, they would have known that the last deals prices would have been the starting place and may have just tried to get Setantas blocks of games. While Setanta keep the UFC and stuff they will keep a solid base. Sky would charge €22-€25 for a UFC main event of PPV if they had it like the WWE but for that you get Sentata for the month so locking up the other sports as best they can will mean they wont lose too many subscriptions
There is actually nothing to stop Sky Sports setting up a 'Sky Sports Ireland' channel and bidding for the Irish 3pm Saturday tv rights. Personally I would be very surprised if that was to happen though. Sky have already confirmed that this will not be the case,
> No recession in football One thing that the credit bubble burst (recession) has demonstrated is that Setanta didnt have the funds to bid for the 2 packages they had previously. However, Sky were able to hold on to their 4 and gain one. Overall, the funds the Premier League will get are 5% above what was paid before, so no 'recession' for the football clubs. That's good news for Liverpool, as the higher they finish up the league and the more live games they appear in, the more income/revenue the club gets. Sky can only afford this if their customer base is retained over the next few years. It remains to be seen whether people will continue to pay 440 a year or whatever it is for the sports package (I dont know what it is in the UK, sorry too lazy to look it up). Whether the recession hits football in england (and Liverpool FC) in other ways remains to be seen. Attendances, commercial rights, CL football TV rights, etc. Players wont be offering 10% paycuts I dont think. Redspider
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/feb/10/setanta-tv-rights-premier-league-sky Setanta is believed to be seeking an urgent meeting with the Premier League in the hope it will help broker a deal to regain the rights it lost in last week's record-breaking TV auction. The Irish company won only one package for the rights to broadcast the Premier League between 2010 and 2013, cutting in half its current output. That would restrict coverage to 23 matches on Saturday evenings, which analysts believe may not be enough to sustain subscriber numbers and could plunge the loss-making channel further into the red. The talks will revolve around trying to re-secure the Monday night package, which Sky won last week, but those close to the process believe that such a manoeuvre would be "virtually impossible". The auction process is heavily regulated by an independent scrutineer under a compromise agreement with the European Commission. The six-year agreement, signed in 2005, allowed the Premier League to continue to auction its domestic rights collectively so long as its live matches were sold to more than one broadcaster. Last Friday, the Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, unveiled the new domestic rights deal, which will bring in £1.782bn between 2010 and 2013. Should Setanta be unsuccessful in securing a reverse of the auction, the state of the channel's funding is bound to come under increased scrutiny. Last night the media research group Enders Analysis questioned whether Setanta could survive in its current form. It calculated that Sky had ended up with five packages after resolving to maintain the level of investment that has proved mutually beneficial for the pay-TV giant and the Premier League over the past 17 years. Of Setanta, Enders said: "We must therefore envisage mass subscriber defections, with every 100,000 subscribers now worth approximately £10m on in annual revenues. Today, Setanta reaches about 1.5 million direct subscribers, slightly short of its required break-even total [estimated at around 1.7-1.8m at current prices]. With live Premier League football such a jewel in its crown, the fear is that Setanta could easily lose upwards of a third of its current subscriber base. At the very least it has to review its entire business plan and survival cannot be taken for granted." But Setanta will hope to persuade its backers that it has a viable business, even with fewer Premier League matches. "That said, it may also be the case that many diehard sports fans will still want Setanta even with a reduced Premier League offering," Enders added. "As a result the net benefit of reduced rights payments and subscriber numbers may actually prove positive." Setanta paid £159m for its package of 23 games, a significant reduction on its existing deal. However, the 20% reduction on it existing outlay on the Saturday evening package will reduce its cost base. It is believed that its strategy of trying to secure a discount on the £355m it paid for 46 matches under the existing deal backfired when Sky won the fifth of six packages on offer. Setanta had hoped to retain two but pay less. Setanta is believed to be examining a number of options, including the possibility of persuading BSkyB to sub-licence the fifth package of Monday night matches back to the broadcaster. Although the two rivals co-operate on selling matches to pubs, a deal that also covers home subscribers is seen as unlikely – partly because it may fall foul of competition rules. A spokesman for Setanta dismissed suggestions that the business is in trouble. "Following the outcome of the Premier League rights auction there is understandable speculation about the future of the business," he said. "But Setanta retain the right to show 46 Premier League games per season until the end of 2009–10, along with a host of other top-class sport including international football, the FA Cup, golf, boxing, Indian Premier League cricket and Guinness Premiership rugby."