Setanta Sports secure rights for England away games
Monday, November 26th, 2007Sportscaster raises £90m from shareholders for premiership putsch
Setanta Sports has snapped up the rights to broadcast the home and away qualifying matches for the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012, whilst ITV will be showing only the home games and the BBC get show the 2010 finals.
After the humiliating exit from next year’s European championship last week, England have been afforded a chance to revenge against Croatia in the upcoming qualifier.
England’s defeat to Croatia captured an audience of 12.3m for the BBC last Wednesday, so the grudge match should prove to be lucrative for Setanta, who after netting £90m from issuing shares to investors, need to make good returns – last year, Setanta managed to accumulate £213 from private equity backers, which it used to secure live broadcast rights for a portion of the Premier League games. Setanta is currently not expected to turn a profit until mid 2009.
The broadcaster plans to spend the money on buying up rights to England international and FA Cup games, increasing its coverage of English football. So far, Setanta has around 400,000 subscribers in the UK and Ireland, and is set to launch the long-awaited Setanta Sports News channel on Sky and Virgin this Thursday.
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:39 pm
absolutley brilliant
i already pay sky, now i have to cough up another tenner (and i bet that will go up) a month to watch england………well FA…you can FU..i have had enough, a good way to lose support from an already p*ssed off group of loyal fans.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:27 am
To be honest mate after last week’s performance I can’t say I’m that bothered!!! Our national side is an absolute disgrace. Witht the exception of Crouch, nobody wanted it enough to win against Croatia.
Mclaren wasnt the only one who deserved to go either!