ESPN recently bought the rights to Setanta’s 46 live FAPL games for the new season, as well as the SPL games in Scotland. This followed Setanta’s bankruptcy earlier in the summer. ESPN took the decision not to retail their new channel directly (as Setanta had done), but instead chose to retail the channel through the big platform owners such as Sky, Virgin Media, BT Vision etc. As a result, very quickly after winning the rights, they signed a deal with Sky to retail the new channel to Sky customers for £9 per month for Sky Sports customers and £12 for all other Sky customers.
Now, just in time for the new football season, ESPN have announced a similar deal with Virgin Media which will make the new ESPN channel available in both standard and high definition (HDTV) to Virgin Media’s 3.5 million digital TV customers from 3rd August. The ESPN channel will offer live Barclays Premier League and Clydesdale Bank Premier League football as well a wide range of international football and top quality sports.
Customers who subscribe to Virgin Media’s XL TV pack will be able to watch ESPN and ESPN HD at no additional cost. As part of the deal, these subscribers will also receive ESPN Classic, featuring the greatest moments of UK and European sport.
Virgin Media customers on the M or L pack will be able to subscribe to ESPN and ESPN HD for £8 a month if they already subscribe to any combination of the Sky Sports channels, or £10 a month if not.
In addition, as a special introductory promotion, Virgin Media will provide the new ESPN and ESPN HD channels, free to all of its digital TV customers during August only.
ESPN will therefore be cheaper on Virgin Media than Sky. Further deals are expected imminently with BT Vision and TopUp TV.
ESPN’s new channel ‘ESPN’ will launch on 3rd August in both standard definition and HD. It will showcase 46 live Premier League football games during the 2009/10 season and 23 matches for each of the following three seasons. ESPN will also show 30 live and exclusive Clydesdale Bank Premier League games each season across the UK and Ireland, starting with the 2009/10 campaign this August. The channel will also broadcast other top international sporting events, which will be announced shortly.
The first live Barclays Premier League game on ESPN will be Everton versus Arsenal with a 5:30pm kick off on Saturday 15th August.
We will keep you posted as the sports digital TV scene continues to change, in the meantime, if you need help to compare sports digital TV packages, do give our experts a call on 0800 466 1047.