It appears that broadcasting giant ESPN has stepped in to save the day for English Premier League junkies as the company bid on, and won the rights to show 46 live matches this upcoming season and bucket load more up until 2013. The American TV network jumped in after Irish broadcaster Setanta failed to pay the English, and Scottish Premier Leagues the over 30 million pounds it owed them.

I actually like the programming that Setanta has to offer as they show a wide variety of British and European sports. But it seems they shot themselves in the foot when it came to football. I’m not sure if you’d call it greed or mismanagement that finally did the company in.

It seems that not too many football fans were willing to fork over the high monthly bills to subscribe to Setanta, especially if the corner pub had already paid for it. The simple solution to the lack of subscribers would have been to lower the monthly rate to a more affordable price and then watch as the subscriptions went up. But this is the world of high finance companies, where the barter system and common sense often take a back seat to profits.

If you’re running a business, I think the last thing you want to do is turn away money, no matter what amount it is if you’re making a profit. If I was a hotel owner and Jack the Lad came knocking on my door and offered me 10 quid for an empty room that usually goes for 50 pounds a night, well I think I’d be daft not to take it. The room’s going to sit empty, so a tenner in my pocket is definitely better than nothing.

But that’s not how big business works. Companies set a price and if you can’t pay it, they take a “screw you” attitude and turn and walk away. The problem is though, they’re walking away from what could be a very substantial profit. The more often they walk away, the more money lost until they eventually go belly up.

I remember when Setanta first came out in North America, they were very hard for local pubs to deal with due to the astronomical rates they were charging. It was rumoured they charged the pubs a price per head when people went to watch a game, and they had a representative there counting fans and collecting the coin. A few years later the company’s games were broadcast on local cable television and satellite systems for quite a reduced price.

The problem with Setanta and other similar broadcasters is the fact it’s all or nothing with them. You either subscribe for the whole month or you don’t see anything. A better option is selling individual games to people who are interested and willing to pay to watch a specific match

Setanta refused to budge on their pricing scheme in Britain and the average fan pushed back and said well “screw you too.” They definitely didn’t help themselves out by listening to what Joe Public had to say, especially in these tough economical times. They are now paying the ultimate price for their stubbornness and have lost their major lifeline.

And what of ESPN, how will they handle and distribute their games, on a pay per view basis ? Well we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. I’m sure not everybody will be happy, but I’m sure they will manage to pay their bills at the end of the day.

English and Scottish football clubs are set to miss out on millions of pounds in income due to the failings of digital broadcaster, Setanta. Setanta have lost all television rights to show top-flight matches in England and Scotland next season as the ailing company could not find a buyer to come in with a last minute rescue attempt.

Setanta were set a deadline on which they had to pay the Premier League £10 million. The failure of the company to do so means that the Premier League and other governing bodies have been forced to cancel contracts, which has put Setanta on the brink of completely collapsing.

It is currently unknown who is likely to receive the contracts that Setanta held, which include the rights to show 46 Premier League games next season as well as some FA Cup matches, SPL matches and England home friendlies. The games will most likely go to the highest bidder, which could mean that Sky Sports end up with all rights to show live football next season.

This is something that rival broadcasters had not wanted as they feared it would encourage even more monopolisation on the part of Bskyb and would take a lot of games away from an audience that could not access them. However, there may be a chance for an English domestic channel to get in on the act. ITV or the BBC could prepare a package to try and buy some rights but the financial leverage that they have probably won’t be any where near the power that Sky can hold.




FA Chief Executive, Ian Whatmore, said: “We are very disappointed with the news. We await developments, but remain confident of the attractiveness of our broadcast rights going forward.”

However the problem is that there is currently a limit on the number of extra games that Sky is allowed to show and given the financial inadequcies of some domestic channels, it could mean that an alien foreign broadcaster picks up the rights. This will cause outrage in the same way that Setanta did because a lot of fans cannot understand how a channel that hardly anyone subscribes to can be allowed to show such important and mainstream sport.

Television income is one of the main inflows of money for a lot of football clubs. They base a lot of their players’ contracts around this money as well as taking gambles in the transfer market based on the money that they are likely to receive. It is doubtful that the collpase of Setanta will have a monumental effect on clubs but it will mean that the transfer market remains a little quieter than it normally would do at this time of year.

Furthermore, given the money that some top clubs are spending at the moment it means a double blow in the respect that clubs relying on TV cash will now be even further behind these financial giants and the ground will only be covered after the horse has well and truly bolted.