ESPN is owned by Disney whose market value beats BSkyB’s parent News Corp by $42 billion to $26 billion dollars. Yet analysts are saying that ESPN could be an easier opponent in the Premiership live television rights stakes than might appear to be the case at first glance. The game could even turn out to be a friendly.
ESPN is owned by Disney whose market value beats BSkyB’s parent News Corp by $42 billion to $26 billion dollars. Yet analysts are saying that ESPN could be an easier opponent in the Premiership live television rights stakes than might appear to be the case at first glance. The game could even turn out to be a friendly. While BSkyB will be cautious of the threat posed by the Disney backed company,
it could have been worse. Tony Syfret of Enders Analysis commented, ‘I think Sky will be quite happy, because ESPN look like they are looking for a partnership with them, acting as wholesalers for Sky, rather than taking over as a dominant force. Because they don’t have their own platform [satellite or cable] the only way they could be really dominant would be to do what Setanta tried and be a retailer of this programming, gaining their own subscriber base. That doesn’t fit in with the culture of Disney and ESPN.’ It was also a path that Setanta tried to follow without success. Having inherited the halving of games that caused Setanta so many problems, ESPN face disappointing their customers in their second full season. But one analyst commented, ‘This surely indicates that ESPN are playing a long game, looking to be in UK football well beyond the end of the deal in 2013.’
Setanta has finally gone into administration and its programmes in Britain went off the air. Administrators Deloitte are closing the business in Britain while its small Irish and international units are likely to be sold. There is money to refund subscribers who paid in advance. Sky could not resist a last swipe at Setanta. Their chief operating officer, Mike Darney, accused his rivals of ‘cheap opportunism’ and said that Setanta ‘ran into difficulties because it tried to grow too fast and failed to control its costs.’ If you add in the failure to generate a subscriber base sufficient to make the business viable, that just about sums it up.