Setanta secure Irish Premiership rights

**Aberdonian Stu** · 31/05/2006, 1:49 PM

Just saw this on Setanta.com
http://www.setanta.com/portal/articl...25717e005c4d93

They'll broadcast 76 games in all.

Monday night football as well as games at 5.15pm on a Saturday. They also still have the Saturday 3pm, seems to imply they have all 30 now instead of a split deal.

**eirebhoy** · 31/05/2006, 7:45 PM

Yeah, the original rights (the 6 packages) were just for the UK but most people (including me initially) thought they were for Ireland too. The more Setanta get the better imo as they are rapidly improving and it's great to have our own sports channel in this country.

**beautifulrock** · 31/05/2006, 7:59 PM

If you have Sky in Ireland, do you get any Setanta channels free or are they all premium?

**pete** · 31/05/2006, 8:04 PM

I read in the IT that the combined irish Premiership rights were 120 million euro. Thats a staggering amount of money. It good RTE didn't get live rights as would have taken too much out of their sports budget.

Setanta now saying will have live football every day of the week in Ireland. I think they paid 700k euro for each match although i am unsure if those figures will match as would seem like 700k would be for 3 years. I then make it approx 230k per match per year....?

**Dodge** · 31/05/2006, 8:10 PM

Originally Posted by beautifulrock

If you have Sky in Ireland, do you get any Setanta channels free or are they all premium?

At the moment you'd have to pay but Skt are trying to get Setanta as part of their sports package

**beautifulrock** · 31/05/2006, 8:37 PM

Thanks Dodge, same here (in the UK) and was wondering if it was the same in Ireland. Wll be interesting to see the outcome of the discussions between them and Sky.

**Dodge** · 31/05/2006, 9:10 PM

beautifulrock, if you have NTL in Ireland you get Setanta as part of the basic package.

**eirebhoy** · 31/05/2006, 9:22 PM

Originally Posted by pete

I read in the IT that the combined irish Premiership rights were 120 million euro. Thats a staggering amount of money.

If that is the figure it certainly is staggering. It's a 3 year deal so that's €40m a year. Setanta will have paid about half that for 4 years of SPL rights by 2010 and they'll have 60 games a season by next season. So the Irish rights for the premiership cost more than the Scottish rights for the SPL. SPL matches surely get higher viewing figures. When Sky had the SPL rights they were paying around 20 times more for the premiership rights at the time but the premiership only had a 2 to 1 ratio in viewing figures.

Actually, I just googled and SPL games on Setanta attract an average of 238,120. 473,000 watched Celtic v Rangers in November. Is it just RTE put up much more competition to Setanta for Irish premiership rights than BBC Scotland or Sky Sports would for SPL rights?

**pete** · 01/06/2006, 9:49 AM

Originally Posted by eirebhoy

Actually, I just googled and SPL games on Setanta attract an average of 238,120. 473,000 watched Celtic v Rangers in November. Is it just RTE put up much more competition to Setanta for Irish premiership rights than BBC Scotland or Sky Sports would for SPL rights?

Those SPL tv figures certainly nothing special. The problem is too many really crap tv games. I think Sky have almost no interest left in the SPL & i read something before that teams didn't like BBC showing games as affected the attendances too much.

**eirebhoy** · 01/06/2006, 10:07 AM

Pete, do you know to average viewing figures for EL games? Also, how much do Setanta, RTE and TG4 pay for the rights? I just find it amazing that RTE would push Setanta so much into paying €40m a year for Premiership games.

**pete** · 01/06/2006, 6:40 PM

Originally Posted by eirebhoy

Pete, do you know to average viewing figures for EL games? Also, how much do Setanta, RTE and TG4 pay for the rights? I just find it amazing that RTE would push Setanta so much into paying €40m a year for Premiership games.

I think maybe up to 40k per eL game when include payments to the home & away clubs. Something in that area anyway.

Very difficult to get Setanta viewing figures but eL matches vary a lot on RTE - anything from 100k to 300k depending on the context & teams involved.

RTE would be lucky to get 200k per Premiership highlights show. I also think had less than 200k for most saturday afternoon games not helped by poorer sides playing generally.

I'm unsure how much commercial savy RTE have as get the impression they more attracted by the glamour of some sports than value for money.

**Bald Student** · 07/06/2006, 9:32 AM

Something that has to be included when looking at this is the cost of sending cameras and a van to a game here versus getting it on a feed, already edited, from Britain.