Tag Archives: Sentanta

ESPN Adds Two Saturday EPL Games To Its Weekly US Broadcast Schedule

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According to EPLtalk website

ESPN has acquired the TV rights to two of the weekly Premier League slots on US television for the 2009-2010 season. Beginning on August 15, 2009, each week ESPN will feature the 7:45am ET Saturday game and the 3pm ET Monday game.

Those two weekly time slots were previously held by Setanta Sports who in the past had sub-licensed those games from Fox Soccer Channel. Despite Setanta losing the two timeslots to ESPN, Setanta US will continue showing the two 10am ET Saturday slots (one game on Setanta US, and the other on Setanta Xtra), as well as the early Sunday morning ET kickoffs and the Tuesday and Wednesday midweek Premier League matches. The games shown by Setanta will also be available on its broadband package at http://www.setanta-i.com

The article also offers some games you can expect to see, including Chelsea v Hull City on August 15th at 6:45am on ESPN2, Liverpool v Aston Villa at 2pm August 24th and Chelsea v Burnley on August 29th at 6:45am.

So to cover your bases, it looks like satellite is still the best viewing path since Mediacom hasn’t added Sentata to their Sports package, at least not to my knowledge.

Sentanta Facing Financial Hurdles – Who Will Broadcast EPL In Fall?

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From the BBC comes an article on Sentanta, who owns the broadcast rights for the English Premier League: Last-ditch effort to save Setanta

Setanta executives are locked in an emergency board meeting to discuss a rescue package in attempt to stave off administration, the BBC has learned. The sports broadcaster could face administration “within days” unless backers provide more funds, earlier reports suggested. The company needs to pay the £30m it owes to the English Premier League.

Administration in England is the same as bankruptcy here. Media Week has weighed in on the issue with their story Setanta rescue talks ‘progressing’

Setanta, the troubled pay-TV sports broadcaster, is optimistic that it can secure a last-ditch funding deal to save it from administration, as it grapples with an estimated £100m funding black hole.

According the the article, Setanta has about 1.2 million UK direct subscribers, but needs 1.9 million to break even. Setanta has also disabled its telephony and online subscription services, preventing new customers from signing up.

What do you think, will ESPN or Fox Soccer Channel step in to sweep up the rights to the top world league programming?

Enjoy The Weekend!

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I’ll be out to cover the three college games in the region this weekend:
Saturday’s doubleheader at Drury – the Men play at 5:00 pm, the Women at 7:00 pm
Sunday afternoons game at Missouri State – the Women host Tulsa at 1:00 pm

Otherwise posting will be light as I’m working very hard to get the second issue of SGFsoccer.com – The Magazine out the door. Be safe!

Oh, and I should mention that Coester’s now has SENTANTA to go along with Fox Soccer Channel, Gol TV and MLS Direct Kick. A couple fellows stopped by this week to see ManU play on Monday and Mark discovered he could buy the Sentata subscription and did it the same day.

So if you’re in the mood for some good international soccer this weekend, visit the home of International and MLS soccer in Springfield :) Clicking on the link will take you to a list of all the games being broadcast this weekend.