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The watch is on for Setanta Sports
By Zach Arnold | June 9, 2009
Will UFC 99 air this Saturday on the network? That’s the big question to ponder now.
- Reuters: Setanta board in emergency refinancing talks – source
- The London Telegraph: Setanta founders attempt last-ditch rescue
- The London Telegraph: Setanta went too far too fast
- BBC News: BSkyB rejects Setanta rescue deal
- The Guardian: ‘One or two’ Scottish clubs face collapse over Setanta crisis
- Ireland On-Line: BT Vision suspends further sales of Setanta Sports programming
- STV: Time running out on sports broadcaster Setanta
- The Irish Times: Setanta Sports says it has some ‘live options’ to prevent its collapse
- The Guardian: Setanta board in crisis talks to avert administration
- The Sun: Setanta is in debt of £500 million
- The Sun: ESPN airs to be the favorite to swoop in for buying Setanta contracts
- The Times: Setanta founders battle to raise £100m
- The Daily Mail: Sky turns its back on Setanta rescue
- The Independent: Setanta board in emergency talks to avert collapse – no longer taking subscribers
- The Independent: Sky’s monopoly on premium pay TV content has choked the life out of its rivals
- Variety: Will ESPN sport ailing Setanta?
- RTE Business: BSkyB ‘turned down Setanta request’ of a £50m lifeline
- STV: Setanta is in the midst of going off-air
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 9 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I think that’s the immediate question. Big question is what losing the money from a rich Setanta deal will do to Euro expansion. If they were barely breaking even in the UK before, losing 50% of their TV money will put them back in the hole. No wonder they cut the number of UK events this year.
I just think its funny how few MMA sites are getting into this.
Few sites wanted to talk about the collapse of PRIDE when it was ongoing. Few sites want to rock the boat or talk about any important story. For the most part, the MMA media corp is not that serious in consistently and repeatedly covering legitimate stories.
What can I say? It’s hard to make money covering legitimate stories, and those in the media corp who would rather post press releases and kiss ass end up making some coin.
The other explanation is that there’s a lot of stupidity right now amongst the various writers.
I think people are right to cover this as a serious story for the UFC.
The financial impact this will have on other sports (boxing, rugby, motor sport, and football to a certain extent) is why it is being covered as a big sports story in the UK.
The potential impacts on the UFC are threefold –
i) losing significant exposure of UFC99, the TUF Finale and UFC100 if Setanta goes down and the TV rights get caught up in the administration process. To be honest I can’t imagine three worse cards for them to lose coverage of. Given the wider exposure of TUF series through Virgin it would be a diaster if they can’t extract the TV rights and resale (assuming Setanta still hold them and haven’t already conducting a fire sale). Likewise for Bisping’s fight at UFC100 – if, and it’s a big if, he wins they will be looking to promote a supershow around him in the UK. Lesner is also a proven huge draw on UK TV for UFC.
ii) Losing revenue. As previously pointed out Setanta likely put in a significant bid for exclusivity. They are unlikely to get anywhere near that bid on resale (the collapse in advertising revenue dependent stations leaves Sky in a dominant position). Additionally Setanta may well have already missed quarterly payments to UFC which they will never get back.
3) Not being able to get a TV deal that gives them the coverage they want. Ideally they want TV in the UK to be both a significant revenue earner and advertising for UK live events. Sky might save them but given their huge portfloio of sport (on their premium subscription channles) they are likely to low ball. Otherwise a Bravo or Virgin deal might offer wider exposure (greater reach) but would pay less and events would also be aired on tape delay reducing the importance of the brand.
To be honest all of this creates significant problems for all of the sports currently with significant exclusive deals with Setanta and UFC is no exceptions.
Lets not forget it’s alreadly heavily rumoured David Haye pulled out of his heavyweight title fight because Setanta asked him to take a pay cut.
Haye signed a 10 fight deal with setanta. Not sure what his gonna do now.
Hey Dave, I am talking about it
And I have been talking about New York not getting MMA legislation done until 2010 for over a year now and no one listens!!!!
They NY Assembly goes on recess for the rest of the year in two weeks!
Have you read that on any MMA blog other than mine?
“What can I say? It’s hard to make money covering legitimate stories, and those in the media corp who would rather post press releases and kiss ass end up making some coin.”
Zach, one word for you, INFOtainment..
All about ratings, so sad that they don’t report legitimately.
[…] case you haven’t heard, the UFC’s UK broadcast partner, Setanta, is on the verge of collapse. If that happens prior to the network’s scheduled airing of UFC 99, obviously that’s a […]
Yeah, this story has been unfolding since about march or so, that’s how long i’ve been blogging on it… seemed to kind of unfold in slo mo fashion, with the world credit crunch pretty much telegraphing this as the inevitable end, they could see the end coming but were a bit powerless to do anything about it….