No Free Premiership Football

[RM-Taylor]

Irish pay-TV operator Setanta has broken BSkyB's exclusive coverage of live premiership football matches, winning the rights to 46 matches.
The Premier League awarded BSkyB with a further package of rights on Friday, giving it 92 live matches in total.

The broadcasters will show the matches on a pay-per-view or subscription basis in the three years from 2007 to 2010.

The TV rights generated £1.7bn ($3.1bn) for the Premier League, with BSkyB paying £1.3bn and Setanta £392m.

Something for everyone

The Premier League divided the live TV rights into six packages of 23 matches, which were auctioned in two batches.

BSkyB was able to bid for all the packages, but could only be awarded five of them.

The European Commission had threatened the Premier League with legal action if it did not ensure that rival broadcasters were given a slice of live TV matches.

BSkyB owns the current packages of live matches after agreeing a £1.024bn deal with the Premier League in 2003.

The satellite broadcaster has held the live rights to Premiership football in England since 1992, a position which has helped it become Britain's leading pay-TV service.

Setanta is 40% owned by private equity group Benchmark Capital and is carried by the Sky satellite pay-TV platform.

Cable TV operator NTL is thought to have been among the other bidders for the new set of rights.

Other Premiership rights, including mobile rights, television highlights packages and overseas rights, will be determined separately.

 

[RM-Taylor]

Setanta doesn't come with the Sports Package on SKY World, so that's rather shit and we're not paying more for an extra couple of games.

 

[Trigger]

So What's happening to Prem Plus?... Don't NTL own the rights to that one?...

 

[RM-Taylor]

So What's happening to Prem Plus?... Don't NTL own the rights to that one?...

Not anymore, they did when it first started, but then SKY bought it, I don't think they'll be a Prem Plus next season.

 

[Trigger]

Not anymore, they did when it first started, but then SKY bought it, I don't think they'll be a Prem Plus next season.

I knew they did own it at one point because NTL customers had that cracking deal for the first two seasons of Premiership Plus where it was £1 a month instead of £1 a game...

 

[Ernest]

There is Prem Plus next season as it's already being advertised but I doubt it will be there for the 2007/8 season.

 

[RM-Taylor]

I knew they did own it at one point because NTL customers had that cracking deal for the first two seasons of Premiership Plus where it was £1 a month instead of £1 a game..

Now that was a great deal, 4 or 5 games for a quid when on Sky if you bought them indiviudally it would of been about £24/£30

 

[cardboard]

All the sky tv from 2007 is package not pay per view and Setana is all pay per view i believe

 

[RM-Taylor]

There is Prem Plus next season as it's already being advertised but I doubt it will be there for the 2007/8 season.

Sky has 92 games, if you say it's being advertised then that channel will probably have about 30 PPV games, leaving the non -PPV payers will probably only get around 62 games

 

[Ernest]

All the sky tv from 2007 is package not pay per view and Setana is all pay per view i believe

It's the beginning of the end

 

[Marc]

Looks like more evenings down the pub watching it for free then

 

[Storer68]

Asuming you can find a pub that is still stumping up Sky's huge (up tp £14k a month) charge for Pub view or may u are happy with commentary in Arabic via a dodgy deal done via Greece.

 

[Gazwag]

But the worst bit is each premiership club gets £28M a year from the deal.

 

[dougdeep]

The prem was the worse thing to happen to football ever. FACT!

 

[Les Biehn]

The prem was the worse thing to happen to football ever. FACT!

I beginning to agree.

 

[Charles 'Charley' Charles]

The prem was the worse thing to happen to football ever. FACT!

Couldn't agree more

 

[Chopper West]

The prem was the worse thing to happen to football ever. FACT!

Rubbish:

The Premiership has brought us

1. Prawn Sandwiches
2. All seater libraries
3. Diego Forlan, Juan Sebastian Veron and other GIANTS of the world game
4. Richard Keys abnormally hairy hands
5. Middlesboro v Fulham on a Monday night

 

[Beach Hut]

Rubbish:

The Premiership has brought us

1. Prawn Sandwiches
2. All seater libraries
3. Diego Forlan, Juan Sebastian Veron and other GIANTS of the world game
4. Richard Keys abnormally hairy hands
5. Middlesboro v Fulham on a Monday night

Not withstanding a mad jock called Andy Gray who cannot be understood...............

 

[Jim D]

I wonder if the PPV matches were even making money for Sky? I know they weren't in the early days. It's probably a very shrewd piece of business to unload a dead horse onto a rival - and let them take the losses with no alternative income to support it.

 

[Gwylan]

Why are people so concerned about which company has Prem rights or not? We don't support a Prem club so why should we be bothered?

Or are there a load of closet Manure supporters on here?