Setanta Sport on the brink of collapse.

[Minder]

If you are paying them by continual debit card payments ring your bank and tell them you have lost your card and request a new one. Would this work?

[The Watcher Pat]

If you are saying them by continual debit card payments ring your bank and tell them you have lost your card and request a new one. Would this work?

It should work as the payments are taken by your debit card number not your a/c number.

You will have a completely new debit card number.

[Puckoon]

that's what I meant minder.

[Minder]

that's what I meant minder.

Oh i know Puck but some on this board need it spelt out explicitly for them. . . . .

[Tyrones own]

Oh i know Puck but some on this board need it spelt out explicitly for them. . . . .

Would you be one of them by any chance... the "would this work?" at the end of your post kinda give it away

[Son_of_Sam]

A well shite, just heard of Setanta's Administration problems, does that mean no football or hurling this year for those of us in Australia, not a hope ESPN will start showing it they wouldn't even show Leinster V Munster & Leicester V Cardiff Blues despite haveing the rights, they showed feckn tractor pulling insted the dumbass gombeens.

[Bod Mor]

A well shite, just heard of Setanta's Administration problems, does that mean no football or hurling this year for those of us in Australia, not a hope ESPN will start showing it they wouldn't even show Leinster V Munster & Leicester V Cardiff Blues despite haveing the rights, they showed feckn tractor pulling insted the dumbass gombeens.

I hope to jesus Setanta pull out of this mess. Us Setanta subscribers in Australia would suffer most. Not a hope would ESPN show any GAA.

[stephenite]

Apparently the two boys that set it up originally are trying to rescue the entire company but if this fails they'll let the UK operation slide and try to buy out the Irish operation and the operation that broadcasts into the States, Australia and Cananda.

If the latter scenario was to play out I'd be happy enough

[GalwayBayBoy]

ESPN, the US sports network owned by media giant Disney, has ruled out a bid for troubled Irish pay-TV company Setanta.

The news is a blow for Setanta, which is still trying to negotiate a last-minute rescue deal to stave off administration.

Setanta founders Michael O'Rourke and Leonard Ryan are examining a range of options, including spinning off its US and Irish subsidiaries.

Selling the business to a cash-rich competitor such as ESPN would have been a quick and easy way of ensuring the company's survival. ESPN was regarded by many industry observers as the main potential buyer for the business.

However, a spokesman for ESPN, which is keen to expand its portfolio of UK sports rights, said: "We currently have no plans to buy Setanta. There are a lot of stories out there linking us with a possible purchase and we wanted to set the record straight."

ESPN was a bidder for some of the English Premier League rights, covering three seasons beginning in August 2010, when they were last auctioned off in February, but lost out to Setanta and Sky. Setanta has 23 live Premier League games a year from the 2010-2011 season.

ESPN may still be interested in acquiring these rights should Setanta go under. If that happens, they will revert to the Premier League before being auctioned off again.

The US broadcaster could also bid for the rights to 46 live games owned by Setanta as part of its current three-year contract with the Premier League, which has one more year to run. If Setanta folds, those rights will also revert to the Premier League and be resold.

However, ESPN would probably face competition from BSkyB for those rights if it did decide to bid. Sky is barred from owning all six Premier League live TV rights packages – each of which consists of 23 games – under EU competition rules.

But Setanta holds two packages, giving it the rights to screen 46 games next season, and Sky could bid for one of them.

ESPN might also be interested in buying Setanta's other sports rights, including US PGA golf, Scottish Premier League football, and the majority of Guinness Premiership rugby games.

[GalwayBayBoy]

Setanta executives were last night expressing genuine hope that the organisation had been pulled back from the brink of collapse after a "very credible" investor emerged with an 11th-hour rescue plan.

Such was the sensitivity of the potential deal that there was no mention of the name of the bidder or its line of business. But the size and boldness of the approach took even Setanta by surprise. A senior executive contacted the Guardian last night to explain that the bid had come from "the left wing".

The executive indicated that the identity of the bidder has not been revealed in previous press reports, which means that ESPN, Sky, Al-Jazeera and the Irish ­billionaire Dermot Desmond can be ruled out. It is understood that the new rescue plan envisages keeping the Setanta ­business intact, with its operations in the UK, Ireland and the US being maintained as a single corporate entity.

But rights holders such as the Football Association, the Premier League, Premier Rugby and golf's USPGA Tour will not feel completely reasssured of their contracts with Setanta, as there was a word of warning. "It [the plan] needs the help of certain rights ­holders, including the Premier League," said the senior executive. "But everyone has been incredibly supportive and if ­everything slots into place over the next few days then we'll be OK."

The Premier League is due a payment of about £30m on Monday and it is Setanta's lack of access to cash to meet that ­commitment that has caused the recent crisis. There is no certainty the Premier League will offer the "help" required, since it believes it has watertight shareholder guarantees with the investment bank Goldman Sachs and the private-equity firms Doughty Hanson and ­Balderton Capital.

Setanta failed in its attempts to reschedule and renegotiate the size of that ­payment, as it did in similar talks with the Football Association, which is also confident of the £150m arrangement it has with Setanta's investors. Indeed, ­previous talks faltered because sports bodies felt that to provide succour would merely delay Setanta's inevitable demise and cause mutual financial pain.

The senior executive pointed out that with insolvency so close – the broadcaster is closed to new subscribers and had prepared the ground for Deloitte to step in as administrator – the organisation would not be speaking with such confidence unless it considered the bid to be serious.

[Gaoth Dobhair Abu]

Interesting history of Setanta.



Why Setanta Sports is in trouble 

By Bill Wilson
Business reporter, BBC News 



Where it all began - Setanta started life in a former Irish club in Ealing
Two decades ago sports broadcaster Setanta started life in an Irish dance hall in west London, showing the Republic of Ireland's 1990 World Cup game against Holland after the BBC and ITV declined to broadcast the game in the UK.

It cost just £10 admission to watch that game in Ealing's Top Hat club and Setanta's two Irish founders, Michael O'Rourke and Leonard Ryan, managed to break even after 1,000 Irish fans turned up to watch the game.

Nineteen years later, Setanta was a company transformed. It had expanded gradually at first, and then grown in a spurt from 2004 onwards - which saw it acquire major sporting rights not only for football tournaments, but golf, horse racing, rugby union, cricket and boxing.

Along the way it changed itself from a niche broadcaster providing Irish and Gaelic sport to an expatriate audience, complete with homely Dublin guesthouse advertisements, to a rival for Sky whenever major sports rights came up for grabs.

Unfortunately for Setanta the financial sums involved had changed greatly too.

'Major breakthrough'

Since the turn of the year, Setanta - which has 1.2 million customers rather than the 1.9 million it needs to break even - had been desperately trying to raise new capital in order to meet payments for sports rights.


 


Q&A: Setanta and you 
No sooner would it make one payment, for example to the Football Association, then money would be owed to other rights holders, such as the £3m owed to the Scottish Premier League, or the more than £30m to the English Premier League.

With the pressure of payments increasing, there are reports that the firm is on the brink of administration.

If Setanta does collapse, its broadcasting rights, such as those owned by the Premier League, will revert to the holders, who will then try to find buyers for their broadcasting packages.

James Pickles, editor of industry journal TV Sports Markets, says: "Setanta was initially able to build a very successful niche business across the world by providing one-off coverage of Irish and Gaelic sporting events to expat audiences.

"Gradually they built it up to the point where it was a worldwide operation with a number of different TV channels, such as Setanta North America, offering a number of different sports, often tailored to each individual market.

"A major breakthrough from expatriate broadcasting to major UK rights came when they won the Scottish Premier League football for the first time in 2004.

"But the big step up was in 2006 when they picked up the two English Premier League packages."


That coup gave them the right to show 46 matches annually for three seasons from 2007/08 to 2009/10.

In some ways it was handed to them after the European Commission ruled that, for competition reasons, one broadcaster could not own all the six domestic Premier League rights packages.

That decision brought an end to Sky's monopoly and allowed Setanta in.

"That seemed to cool the doubts that some people had about the business, and it started gaining them a bigger audience," says Mr Pickles.

That was followed by the deal with PGA golf, which secured coverage - for six years from 2007 - of 40 top golf events annually in the US.

Once again Setanta broke the Sky monopoly, and grabbed the exclusive UK and Republic of Ireland rights to the premier US golf professionals competition

"That was their second big move," says Mr Pickles. "People said it was very clever as it gave Setanta lots of content, and enabled them to actually set up their golf channel.

"At that point it all appeared to be moving forward for them.

"However, in a way it was not long after that golf deal that their problems started."

No buyers

After securing the Premier League rights, Setanta received in excess of £400m in private equity funding.

But the private investors wanted to see a return on their money, and soon started to look around for a profitable sale.

"Private equity investors are are looking for a three-to-five year window of investment at most," says Mr Pickles.

"But for a pay-TV channel you need a longer period than that to get established. It is very hard to launch a pay-TV channel and then consolidate, particularly when you have someone like Sky who is so dominant.


Winning US PGA golf rights was seen as a good move by Setanta
"At the start of 2008 - after the surge in interest and customers brought about by Setanta's two Premier League packages - there was talk of the firm being up for sale for £1bn, which was judged to be too much."

Potential investors would have seen that there were only two years left on their Premier League deal, and there was no guarantee Setanta would win again when the rights came up for renewal.

"This was their difficulty - when TV deals are sold in three-year cycles it is hard to show that you have an established and long-term portfolio of rights for investors," says Mr Pickles.

Despite reported interest from Disney sports channel ESPN there were no takers, and doubts were being expressed about some of Setanta's deals.

FA Cup magic?

For example, the year before, in 2007, Setanta had signed a deal with the Football Association to show FA Cup matches and England home friendly matches.

From 2008 to 2012 it would show 25 FA Cup matches a year and eight England friendlies across the contract.

"I don't think that was such a great deal for Setanta," says Mr Pickles. "You might only get two or three big FA Cup matches a year, and you have to wonder how many people are going to pay to watch an England friendly match."


Setanta lost one of its two 23 game packages for the 2010 to 2013 period
In 2007 Setanta had also launched a sports news channel in competition with Sky's offering. That ate up millions in capital.

The company did do a good deal, according to Mr Pickles, in winning exclusive rights to England's away World Cup qualifiers, but they then suffered a public relations disaster in a row over selling the highlights to such games to terrestrial broadcasters such as ITV and the BBC.

Setanta could not agree a deal to sell on the highlights to ITV or the BBC.

Many fans were angry they were unable to watch highlights of the games on an analogue channel and blamed Setanta - which said it had not received a financially acceptable offer.

In the meantime the recession was starting to bite and people were thinking twice about sports pay-TV, particularly if they already subscribed to Sky.

'Questions raised'

A massive blow came in February this year when Setanta failed to retain the rights to their two packages of English Premier League rights for the 2010 to 2013 period, winning only one tranche of 23 games.

"That really raised questions about the viability of their business model," says Mr Pickles.

"They went into those negotiations with about 1.5 million customers, and would have been looking to expand their Premier League audience.

"But it seems the private equity partners said they were going to see if they could bid less and get away with it. They didn't, and Sky got the fifth package."

If Setanta does collapse there will be a scramble to acquire its many rights, with ESPN seemingly poised to finally make inroads to the UK football broadcasting market.

[Gnevin]

Had this at home and was willing to throw a 10er a month their way for the leagues and Rugby but then they went mainstream and spent crazy money of EPL . Increased the price from 10 a month to about 25 and I just cancelled . I know a lot of people who did the same.

[The Real Laoislad]

SETANTA SPORTS founders Michael O'Rourke and Leonard Ryan have secured an international backer that could help them secure the future of the Dublin-based pay TV sports broadcaster.

Mr O'Rourke and Mr Ryan will put an offer for a majority stake in the cash-strapped business to the company's directors at a board meeting in London today.

This offer is backed by a major international group and will involve an investment of about £50 million (€58.7 million) in the company.

This will result in Mr O'Rourke, Mr Ryan and their backer taking a majority stake in the business.

If accepted, other shareholders, including private equity firms Balderton Capital and Doughty Hanson, which owns TV3, would have their holdings in the Irish firm diluted.

A deal would also secure about 450 jobs at the broadcaster, including about 200 in Ireland.

Setanta, which is loss-making, urgently needs an injection of cash to prevent the company from slipping into administration.

Mr O'Rourke and Mr Ryan have worked around the clock this week to secure a rescue package to save the company they founded in 1990.

Accounting firm Deloitte was placed on standby to act as administrator to the business if new investment could not be secured.

Setanta has committed close to £1 billion in recent years to secure live rights to top sports including Premier League football and the FA Cup in England, the Scottish Premier League (SPL), PGA golf in the US, Uefa Champions League football and Formula One motor racing.

Earlier this month, Setanta missed a £3 million payment due to the SPL. It was reportedly due to make a £35 million payment to the Premier League in England this week.

Its difficulties began in February when Setanta lost one of its Premier League live rights packages to Sky. This means it will only be able to show 23 live games from August 2010 for three seasons.

In parallel with seeking new investment, Setanta has sought to renegotiate its various rights deals with rights holders. It is believed to have sought discounts of up to 25 per cent from rights holders. The firm has sought to trim other costs within the business in a bid to put the company on a footing to reach breakeven.

Failure to agree a deal today could push the company towards administration. This would result in its rights reverting to the various sporting bodies and could result in Setanta being broken up.

[Denn Forever]

Just heard someone (A Russian who else) has paid 20M for a 51% share.

Will that save them?

[Bogball XV]

The English Premiership has taken back their rights from Setanta for non payment - that would appear to be the end.