The penultimate confirmation of Setanta Sports death knell was rung on Monday June 22nd with the announcement that ESPN had bought the rights from the English Premier League for the 46 live games that Setanta originally had for next season. Today they also added the rights to show the same matches in the Republic of Ireland for 2009/10, these had also been under the prior ownership of Setanta before the Irish company went into administration on the 23rd of June.
The American company announced on Tuesday that they will be launching their own UK based sports channel on the 3rd of August. It is in this medium that they will broadcast the 46 matches that they have acquired from the Premier League, most of which will consist of the Saturday early evening kick-offs. As it stands the new channel will be available for subscription through Sky, but there are apparent negotiations ongoing in order to make it available through Virgin and BT service providers.
It now at least means that there will be another broadcaster other than Sky who owns the rights to Premier League fixtures. This is necessary because of the EU law implemented a couple of years ago which stated that no individual broadcaster would be allowed to have exclusive coverage rights of such a sport, hence ending any potential monopolies.
Of course there will be many who argue that they don't really mind, after all Sky have been a part of the Premier League since it's conception for the 1992/93 season, and they have always done it reasonably well. Although that may not be a good enough excuse for the people I know who dislike Andy Gray and see him fit only for parodying. On the other hand Jeff Stelling is now synonymous with watching the results come in on the weekend- and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
For all the flack and humour that Setanta Sports might have taken over the last couple of seasons though, I have to admit that I didn't mind too much for their coverage. It was a strange experience to be part of a minute percentage of the population in England who could watch an England World Cup qualifier on their TV. It meant that I could be enthralled and terrified at the same time by the site of Terry Venables' perma-tanned and snazzy-suited punditry. Despite that 'triumph' I think that England matches should be available for the majority of the populace to watch on terrestrial TV, they should in that regard be like the FA Cup final for all to see.
As for Setanta's other 'selling-points', I would be shocked and mostly appalled if anyone was to tell me that Steve McManaman is not Jamie Redknapp's superior. Clearly he was on the football field, for all of Redknapps' early endeavours in his career, but that continues today with the media work too. McManaman has often been honest and fairly critical with his analysis when covering matches for Setanta.
Jamie meanwhile is frequently referred to as the (censored!) one who sits on Sky most Saturdays wearing the same suit that he has for the last three seasons. More unfortunate is his insistence on sitting with his knees as far apart as possible, sometimes I worry that he will fall off the seat altogether whilst insisting that he is 'smart-casual' in his cockney accent.
What will lie ahead with ESPN is therefore anyone's guess. I had a very brief nightmare that they would go ahead with disinterested presenters from the USA, but this was quickly followed by a hope that they would, even if it would just be ironically funny the first time, possibly! Ideally they will do what Setanta teased us with but failed to deliver, and that's a full-time Des Lynam.
I would welcome his return because however nice Gary Linekar may be, he's never really touched the heights of the great 'tache. The glory days of seeing Martin O'Neill teasingly argue with Alan Hansen during the BBC's World Cup '98 coverage is probably the pinnacle of punditry viewed on TV. All that really matters most of all is that we never ever (ever!) again be subjected to Andy Townsend going over tactics in a trailer. To think they wouldn't even let him into the studio..!