After a weekend when it looked like the sports digital TV company Setanta may be escaping administration, the pressure was back on today as the FAPL issued a tender for Setanta’s 46 live FAPL games and set this Friday as a deadline for payment. The tender invites other parties to bid for the rights to the games, should Setanta fail to meet a £10m payment on Friday, as the failure to make payment would result in their existing license with the FAPL being terminated.
The FAPL said it “would like to provide Setanta with as much time as possible to rearrange its finances” but noted that the start of the 2009-10 season was “two months away”.
If Setanta did lose the license to the 46 FAPL games it really would be game over (excuse the pun) for the company. The majority of Setanta’s estimated 1.2 million customers subscribe for the FAPL (and the SPL).
The FAPL has set the bid deadline for Monday next week but prospective bidders will be given notice on Friday if Setanta meets conditions.
In the existing set-up, applicable from 2007-10, the Premier League sold four of the six packages to Sky for £1.31bn for rights to 92 live games a season. Setanta paid £392m for the remaining 46 live games.
According to the Financial Times, FAPL insiders said most groups interested in the rights would have been among those involved in the tendering process for the 2010-13 Premier League domestic broadcasting rights completed this year.
Sky are limited to acquiring rights to 5 out of the 6 packages under the FAPL’s regulatory agreement with the European Commission, but they no doubt would be very interested in increasing their quota of games to the limit. And ESPN the sports network owned by Disney,is also expected to express an interest in taking over Setanta’s rights, though it denied interest in taking over the broadcaster itself.
Meanwhile Setanta continue negotiations with Len Blavatnick and Endemol.
The net result for Setanta customers is to watch this space. It’s still very unclear as to what the future is. If you would like help to compare digital TV sports providers and deals do try our website at www.simplifydigital.co.uk