Espn To Rescue Setanta

[phutoie2]

Article in the online Daily T this morning about Disney backed ESPN coming to the aid of Setanta and buying up the Premier league rights (23 games) for 130m and 159m for the next 3 years.

I wonder if this if any has any implications for TV football over here. When I moved here ESPN showed most of the football and then True Visions got in on the act.

Did True bid for the current round of Prem league TV games??

I never knew that the Disney Corp were behind ESPN.

[Jimjim]

Should have absolutely no bearing here as each country's contracts are worked out separately. Liked it better on ESPN, but I think True have it for at least one more season.

[EastSaxCol]

I think that the only country where it will make any difference is in America. They've obviously got an eye on the potential and growing market for "soccer" consumption over there. All-in-all it seems a shrewd move by them. Shame that anyone will need more than the present Sky subscription to watch televised matches though. Although I'm still not exactly sure how this will all affect SPL teams , as they are the ones who will be most hard hit by the collapse of Setanta.ESPN will surely take into consideration that there isn't exactly a lucrative global market for watching Scottish matches outside of possibly Old Firm games.

[Sparkles]

Article in the online Daily T this morning about Disney backed ESPN coming to the aid of Setanta and buying up the Premier league rights (23 games) for 130m and 159m for the next 3 years.

I wonder if this if any has any implications for TV football over here. When I moved here ESPN showed most of the football and then True Visions got in on the act.

Did True bid for the current round of Prem league TV games??

I never knew that the Disney Corp were behind ESPN.

After seeing, listening and putting up with some of the presenters ESPN have I am not all surprised they have a link up with Disney

[phutoie2]

Apologies all, I must have miss-read the article!!. Setanta have now gone into administration and ceased trading in the UK last night.

The Premier league have sold Setanta's allocation of premier games to ESPN which must mean that ESPN now have all the games?

I was wondering as we have ESPN channel here in Thailand with True will they show Premier matches or will True not allow that.

[Jimjim]

As I said before, the rights for each country are sold separately. The article you read probably showed ESPN has the rights to show Premiership matches in the UK only. Ok, I just read an article and that is the case. ESPN will now be shown on Sky in the UK. That deal only has to do with the UK. No, ESPN does not have all the rights now. Whatever games Sky or BBC or whomever already had before, they still have those games. This deal is only about Setanta as because they had no more money their rights were up for sale so ESPN stepped in to take Setanta's Premiership package only, and as far as I can tell, this deal only pertains to the UK. U.S. rights would have to be bid on separately, so this doesn't really make any difference in the U.S. at the moment, though I suspect it eventually will.

Setanta never even had a channel in Thailand so it has absolutely no bearing on the Premiership TV rights in Thailand. True Visions owns those rights so, no, they will not let ESPN Asia show them as they don't have the rights and haven't for the last 2 seasons. The ESPN that bought the rights for the UK is actually considered a different entity than ESPN Asia, anyway. ESPN Asia is obviously affiliated to the original ESPN in the United States but has it's own staff and corporate structure as I understand it.

In another note, Setanta also had/has a channel in the U.S. so those rights will probably be up for sale as well, I assume. I assume it's all the same corporation so it may mean ESPN can move in to take the Premiership rights for the U.S. as well, but that would be a whole separate deal as like I said, the TV rights are sold separately for each and every country. ESPN Asia has the Premiership rights for several countries in Asia, but it's only because they won the bidding for each country, and lost the bidding war in Thailand last time around.

Make sense now?

I think True has the rights for this one next season, and then there will be bidding again. I may be wrong, but I remember it being a three year deal. If that's the case, that likely means the Premier League TV rights for all of SE Asia will be up for grabs yet again.

Edited June 24, 2009 by Jimjim

[bangkok blue]

Yep this is True's final season under the current deal, we'll see if they renew, although they do also now hold the rights to the FA Cup and England matches for the next 3 years too.