According to the Guradian website, Setanta is already winding up it’s operations as the signup page on their website and the telephone registration service are unobtainable. The announcement of administration has been delayed because the company has operations in the US, UK and Ireland, which makes things complicated.
It’s roumored that ESPN are looking to snap up some of the rights at a discount once Setanta’s rights are to be sold by the Administrator, but it looks like there may be a bidding war with BSkyB, as they have the opportunity to pretty much wrap up the English Premier rights, leaving only a handful of games for another rights holder.
So where did it all go wrong for the ’home of boxing’?
Setanta’s huge outlay for Football rights seems to have triggered their downfall as they need about 2 million subscribers to brake even but currenlty only have about just over 1 million.
Setanta’s subscription of £15 per month with no minimum contract has led to high turnover of subscribers, particularly when it comes to boxing, as boxing fans subscribe for a fight or two, then cancel the subscription once they’s had their fill of boxing.
Setanta are also a victim of the Freeview mess, which has only really benefited the BBC. Older Freeview boxes were not all compatible with subscription services, and even newer devices are confusing to set up and subscribe to pay services. That left Sky and/or Virgin as the only viable ways for people to get Setanta (with the additionof BT last year, but this has very low numbers at present). This meant that the potential Setanta customers were already paying a subscription fee, so why add to this with another £15 a month, particularly when times were hard?
With the demise of Setanta, a farily major issue raises it’s head in the UK - and that is monopolisation of sports rights by BSkyB, should they acquire the rights they are after. It would also mean a potential repeat of the Setanta setup if ESPN gets the rights, where costmers would already be subscribing to BSkyB, Virgin etc. and have to sbscribe to ESPN as well.
In other words, BSkyB wins any way! We’re still years away from IP technolgies being able to deliver HD services to homes all over the country and Vrigin has relatively limited coverage, so BSkyB is the only viable delivery mechanism.
But don’t rule out some interest from not so obvious parties, e.g. Hulu, YouTube, BabbleGum, Joost etc. These guys need content, and should European anti competative law get in the way of some of the potential rights acquisitions by BSkyB, they may be in with a shout of getting some rights at bargain basement prices. It could be more compicated, with a deal imvolving another broadcaster as well, but it wouldn’t suprise me if they are taking a look.
So where does this leave the UK boxing fan? Only Sky, Eurosport and SecondsOut.com will be providing any regular boxing coverage, and with a subscription to SkySports and the occasional PPV on top, Sky is becoming more expensive to the dedicated fan. Eurosport shows tend to lack the big names available through Sky and PPV, but they o have some genuinely exciting boughts at times, although again, you need a Sky or Virgin subscription to watch Eurosport.
SecondsOut.com on the other hand only charges for each bought, and we try and charge as low as we can to cover our costs and rights acquisitions. The bottom line is, the more people watch SecondsOut.com broadcasts, the more value for money we can deliver!
Our only challenge, and indeed the boxing industry and sports industry in general, have is the illegal re-broadcast of live and delayed events on the internet - but I’ll leave that for another time!
In the mean time, RIP Setnata, Sultana, Santana et al.
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