Setanta Sports to broadcast Football Association

Setanta Sports will televise programming from The Football
Association (FA),
England’s
governing body for soccer. This agreement which runs from the 2008/09 through
2011/12 seasons was announced at the NCTA’s Cable Show (Booth ES 73).
Setanta Sports will select exclusive matches to televise on
their channel in order to bring
U.S.
soccer fans live match telecasts from the FA Cup. Setanta will also broadcast
the FA Cup Final played each year in May at Wembley Stadium.
The new deal for the
U.S.
market starts in August this year with the season opening FA Community Shield,
an annual match between the FA Cup holders (
Portsmouth) and The Barclays Premier League
title holders (Manchester United) that kicks off the English soccer season. In
addition, the agreement includes a selection of live and exclusive home matches
involving the
England
team as they seek qualification to the 2010 FIFA World Cup under new coach
Fabio Capello.
Setanta Sports and Fox Soccer Channel have agreed to a
formula under which games will be selected for each network to run exclusively.
In addition to live matches, both channels will have rights to ancillary FA
programming, including preview and review shows, archive matches and magazine programs.
In an additional deal, Setanta has secured all of the rights in
Canada where
the service launched in the summer of last year.
Roger Hall, Managing Director, Setanta Sports International,
commented “It’s fantastic to be adding The FA Cup and
England internationals to our growing portfolio
of key soccer and rugby rights in the
North America.
As a domestic rights partner of the FA back in the
UK
we will be producing our own coverage of live games to beam into homes in
North America.”