Setanta Sports adds BT Sport to it's line-up

Setanta Sports to add BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2 and ESPN from August 1st. The deal brings an additional 38 Barclays Premier League games, including 18 top pick games, to Setanta’s existing 33 games. Other top live sport including FA Cup, Scottish Premier League, Bundesliga, Aviva Premiership and UFC will now form part of the Setanta pack.

Setanta Sports today announced a new deal with BT to add their BT Sport channels including ESPN into the Setanta Sports pack.  The deal means that Setanta Sports subscribers on satellite in the Republic of Ireland will receive the BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2 and ESPN channels from August 1st.

BT Sport acquired the UK and Ireland rights to 38 Barclays Premier League games including 28 Saturday games at 12:45. A total of 18 of these games are top pick games meaning that BT Sport has the right to choose the highest profile fixtures. This is the first time that these top pick games won’t be on Sky Sports.  Earlier this year BT acquired the rights to the ESPN channel in the UK and Ireland.  The deal means that Setanta Sports subscribers will receive all BT Sport and ESPN’s live premium content including:

• 38 Barclays Premier League games
                                          
• 25 FA Cup games
                                                                           
• 30 Scottish Premier League games 
                                        
• 69 Aviva Premiership Rugby games 
                                        
• Bundesliga
                                                                                         
• Major League Soccer
                                                                     
• 30 Live UFC events
                                                                         
• French Ligue 1
• Italian Serie A
 
• 10 Scottish Football League games
• Brasileiro Série A
• Moto GP
• 21 Live WTA tennis events
• French Top 14 Rugby

This content will sit alongside Setanta’s existing portfolio of sport including 33 Live Barclays Premier League games at 3pm on Saturdays, Live Allianz Leagues GAA, Formula 1, Champions League, Europa League, NHL, NASCAR, League of Ireland and live horseracing.

Commenting on the deal Brian Quinn, Marketing Operations Director of Setanta Sports said

This content is a real game changer for Setanta.  It’s not just going from 33 to 71 Premier League games that is exciting, it is the massive step-up in the quality of games that will really make the difference for our customers.  The new games from BT include 18 top pick matches meaning that we will have top of the table clashes between the leading teams. Also, having the channels available to our customers in HD is a great addition.”

Marc Watson, CEO of TV for BT commented,

We are delighted that Setanta Sports will be distributing BT Sport in the Republic of Ireland.  Ireland is a very important market for us and we are confident that Setanta can do a great job establishing the BT Sport brand with Irish sports fans. BT Sport offers some of the very best live football and rugby action. We’ve signed up some of the world’s biggest football stars, like Gareth Bale and Rio Ferdinand, as well as top presenters, such as Jake Humphrey, Lawrence Dallaglio and Clare Balding, to make BT Sport unmissable for sports fans.  With Setanta’s existing content, we think BT Sport and Setanta sports will be a winning combination.”

The new channels launch on Sky on August 1st.  To subscribe to Setanta Sports on Sky visit www.setanta.com/ie/gamechanger for more information or call Setanta on 0818 20 30 40.

Further details of the Setanta Pack on cable and broadband will be released before Aug 1st