Setanta going under?

Setanta is apparently in dire financial straits and could fold soon. According to this article, ESPN could pursue their EPL rights. I would love to see the EPL on ESPN!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8089275.stm

 

If I was an ESPN exec, I would feel like the cat that swallowed the canary. Nothing to do but wait and then snap up the rights when the time is right and the price is cheap. I try to avoid ESPN for all sports news nowadays (that takes some work), but this could turn my head around

 

But what about Special1TV?

On the one hand, I'm nervous about ESPN and the split screen updates (LIVE from Kiln, Brett Favre eats a chicken wing!!!!), but on the other that would still beat watching on IraqGoalsAdNet.com.

Please Lord, do NOT let them put Lalas anywhere near this if it happens.

 

On the negative side I can't see ESPN showing more than one or two games a week between ESPN, ESPN 2, & Classic.

On the positive side it will be a lot easier (and cheaper) to see the games that are on! and hopefully an arrangement can be made to allow other games to go to FSC. Maybe the two can cut a deal so ESPN can get some of their Champions League Games.

I am not a proponent of Setanta and what its doing to the game in North America. They provide a lot of content sure but they gouge the hell out of you for it and in doing so block out the casual and potential new viewers. This has the effect of slowly widiling away the existing customer base while replacing it with no one new.

I can be seen as an example of such. In Canada if you have the standard cable sports channels you can get 2 live games a week (usually the two worst match ups of the week) and one on like a 10 hour delay. The rest are on Setenta which is expensive and hard to find. As a broke college student there are simply more pressing avenues in which my time(like sleeping) and money(a whole lot a stuff) must be invested. The upshot of this is that I catch only about half the Fulham games online and see almost nothing else. I've completely fallen out of touch with the league as a result.

IMO it was very short sighted of the PL to go with Setanta for short term monetary gains. Its my understanding that they are doing similar things in England and no doubt the rest of the world. So I say bring on ESPN!!

 

If the ESPN thing did happen, I don't think its any guarantee that they won't just keep the "Setanta" brand alive, especially in North America. I'd love to see more Premier League games on a non-Premium channel, but I'm not convinced thats how it will end up.

 

Favre is living in Hattiesbrug. But I get the point.

 

This is indeed a big chance for ESPN to grow their brand. First they need to renegotiate the PL contracts.

Then buy out setanta's bandwidth for cheap. And change the marketing paradigm. As said, too high a price for a 'growth' product esp in these times.

Gotta find a way to put in adverts in least disruptive way possible... suppose it DOES shrink to split screen, every 5 miutes or so. Only requires some common sense tech to replay anything that happened.

And what about language? This is DIGITAL AGE, guys... dont need separate band to go Spanish/ French/English.
In fact how about AUDIO commercials for residence viewing. Leave clear for bars, etc.

 

Was going for alliteration....and hoping the inaccuracy would slip through.

 

Ag, i'm from Miss and a big southern miss supporter (going to college world series this weekend). I was fed up with the favre stuff and really wanted him to go away. Then I realized, my problem isn't so much with favre as it is with espn. If espn didn't follow him to the bathroom, it wouldn't be such a big deal.

If you haven't read God Save the Fan, i would recommend it. It's basically 200+ pages of what's wrong with ESPN, but a few chapters in the middle are great.

 

My only concern is where ESPN would put the Prem programming during the college football season. There are Saturday mornings in the fall in which ESPN has a college football game on ESPN, EPSN2, ESPN Classic, and sometimes even ESPN News (snooze as I like to call it). ESPN could certainly afford to buy another channel, but would they? Would they tape delay games liek Setanta? The spring would be a delight as ESPN could have a few Prem games on at the same time on different channels w/o any competition (unless you count baseball)...

 

That's one of the reasons I think they might just keep the Setanta NA brand going. The early games would be no problem, but they might have trouble finding time for the later games. Or maybe they would work something out with Sky where they get only the early games for the American market, at least in the first half of the season?

 

Setanta North America for sale?

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8109954.stm

One step closer to that ESPN deal.

 

Guess I won't be purchasing their online subscription next season. Sucks too cause they had just upgraded it. What a pity.

 

Update:

Disney quick to devour the Setanta leftovers as ESPN agree Premier League TV deal

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... l?ITO=1490

 

From the horse:
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story ... nd&cc=5901

 

I'm pretty sure that we'll still be watching Premier League matches on Setanta USA next season unless something else changes.

 

From what I gather Sentanta is on the brink of financial ruin. I'm not sure if they will be around to broadcast the Premier League next season. Hope the duties fall to ESPN. Would be great not having to pay the additional $15/month and I believe the quality of the broadcast would be a little better as well.

 

From what I've read, Setanta UK is on the brink of financial ruin, but Setanta US is a profitable business.

Edit to add: Intuitively, I could see how that would be, since you would have to guess that they spend a ton of money to get rights to broadcast the EPL in the UK, but much less to broadcast in the US.