Espn to take over Setanta

ESPN taking over Setanta would be a win win as far as i'm concerned.

No Setanta spells trouble for domestic sports coverage excluding football.

 

Yep, except itv digital blew their funds on the Football League, which doesn't attract subscribers.

Setanta blew their finds on the SPL, which doesn't attract subscribers.

Truth be told, they needed the Premier League rights as they never would have gained anyy suscribers with their "niche" line-up they had a few years back. Unfortunately 1 EPL game a week (which is all they will have from the 2010-2011 season) does not justify the £13 a month people spend.

Its a harsh world, but unless you have the quantity or sports rights that sky has, or show sport free to air i.e. BBC/itv/five you will always struggle.

Boxing has not done setanta any good, or any harm at all. However Football appears to have done them some good, but heaps and heaps of bad.

 

I hope ESPN do buy Setanta. In general, they've always been good for boxing in the states.

I've no idea why Setanta spent money on getting Scottish football, they might as well have bought the rights to my local Dog and Duck league, it's the same standard.

 

That's pish. Pure and simple.

Setanta are in trouble because of their deals with the English premier league and the English FA.

It was the deal with the SPL that first brought Setanta to prominence in this country and helped provide a spring board for the ill fated deals with the EPL and English FA.

 

So if ESPN buy's Setanta how are we going to see all the HBO, Showtime and UFC cards we get now?

Boxing and UFC is ****ed.

We are'n going to get HBO etc on ESPN.

 

Setanta do deals with the promoters and not HBO/Showtime.

However with the UFC I think they deal with them directly.

 

But they paid way over the odds for something that most people south of the border are only interested in for four games a season. Falkirk v Inverness on Setanta, or Man U v Arsenal on Sky?

The problem is everything Football wise for them is the weaker end of the bargain.

Premier League-the bigger games are on Sky. Take Survivial Sunday, sky had 3 massive games, while Setanta were left with Middlesbrough needed an 8 goal shift or something to stay up.

FA Cup-Alternative games are available on itv, and the only times they may have had the edge in live games-quaters and semis, people can easily go down the pub for those.

England games-same really, half on itv, the other half people go down the pub for.

And apart from that...
Sky-Setanta
majority EPL-minority EPL
Champions League-FA Cup
Football League-SPL
Carling Cup and Scottish Cup-Blue square premier and Setanta Shield
La Liga-Ligue 1, Bundesliga

For English folk, sky beats setanta in each of those 5 categories.

Setanta needed top level Football to survive and be a contender to sky, but paying way over the odds for SPL and minimal EPL games has been the breaker for them.

 

ESPN have been downsizing their Boxing coverage for a while, have done away with wednesday night fights. when the klits gave the Vitali-Peter fight live on the cheap to increase their profile, ESPN bumped it down to classic so that they could show some college wrestling.

 

Eh up, Matt!

I know they've dropped off in the past couple of years but they still show a bit of boxing. Hopefully they'll show some U.S based fights over here, with some of our fights going over there. It could work well.

 

hiya, could work well for us in that it would be easy for them to arrange FNFs live for us. they couldnt really show our fights live as saturday lunch time is dominated by baseball and/or college football, might be able to show ours delayed late at night over there. with promoters selling overseas rights and not american networks they should still be able to get the level of fights they have been, even if it is with the Colonel as apposed to Lampley/Merchant. ESPN/Star sports have a big presence in Asia and the Phillipines and dont show any live boxing there, which is a bit of a concern. If they incorporate the setanta ethos things will be good but if they try and make brit ESPN like Asian and South American ESPN then we wont be seeing much, if any live boxing.

 

i was going to say that why would HBO not want to make money by selling the rights in britain they wouldnt care who bought them

 

Some of you are getting too excited by the name ESPN and worrying that it means all we'll get is the sh!tty network style fights over here that ESPN in the US show. It is much bigger than that.

ESPN is 80% owned by ABC, which is owned by the Walt Disney company. In other words, fooking massive.

If they took over Setanta they would be likely to leave the current strategy in place in the short term. Who knows after that, but it is well known that they have been looking to get involved in the English Premier League rights and they may see this 'distressed seller' opportunity as too good to turn down.

 

HBO don't own the UK rights to those fights, why would they when they don't have a UK broadcasting presence?

 

yep, some people are getting confused. when has anyone heard Al Bernstein or Larry Merchant on Setanta........never. Setanta have never bought a fight from HBO or Showtime, they deal with promoters.

 

to their detriment imo sometimes