ESPN NABS ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE BROADCAST RIGHTS

Financially troubled Setanta Sports has lost one of its biggest programming resources, as the English Premier League and Scottish Premier League soccer organizations both dropped the network on Monday. Setanta missed a scheduled payment to the EPL, and as a result had their contract terminated by the league. Almost immediately afterwards, the league announced that they had completed a deal with ESPN to become to primary broadcast outlet for their games.

ESPN outbid other interested parties at a hastily arranged auction in London. There were two 23 game packages up for grabs, and ESPN bought them both. In the forthcoming season, ESPN will have a total of 46 live games split between Saturday and Monday nights. They also acquired Setanta’s rights to broadcast 23 games in 2010-2011, 2011-2012, and 2012-2013.

Terms of the deal were not announced, but ESPN has big plans for their new crown jewel of European sports. They plan to make the EPL games available across a number of their programming platforms, including online. Russell Wolff, Executive Vice President and Managing Director, ESPN International had these comments:

"Premier League football is one of the world's most sought after sports properties, and we are very excited to be expanding our business in the UK with England's top football product. This move demonstrates our commitment to British sports fans and our ongoing commitment to delivering football to fans around the world across a variety of media."

Lynne Frank, ESPN’s managing director for Europe added:

"We are clearly delighted that our bid for exclusive media rights to the Barclays Premier League matches in the UK has been successful. This is a huge step for our business, and we look forward to working with the Premier League, football clubs and distributors to bring UK sports fans all the excitement they expect in Premier League football."

Premier League Chief Executive, Richard Scudamore, was equally enthused about the new partnership:

"The Premier League is extremely pleased to have added ESPN as a UK rights holder. They have a formidable worldwide reputation and experience in sports and I am sure we will enjoy a long and fruitful relationship with them."

The Scottish Premier League hasn’t announced plans for their future programming, but they have also terminated their contract with Setanta following a missed payment. SPL Chairman Lex Gold detailed the situation:

“Setanta has been unable to meet our extended deadline for the outstanding £3 million payment to the SPL and, in terms of the notice previously issued, our British broadcasting rights for season 2009/10 and beyond revert to us. We are now actively engaging in the process of selling our domestic broadcasting rights for next season and beyond. But I don't accept that we will have to take a reduced fee. We have a product that is valuable in the market place.”

Setanta was on the verge of going off the air earlier this month, and are definitely not out of the woods yet. They have plans to sell off some of their more lucrative properties to raise capital, but that has the damaging side effect of cannibalizing their programming which hurts their revenue potential going forward. Furthermore, they’re not able to compete for programming rights when their current contracts come up for renewal. Another recent casualty is the UK rights to broadcast UFC events. The USA’s #1 mixed martial arts promotion ended their contractual obligations to Setanta earlier today.