BT Sport, the new sports broadcaster at the heart of the ongoing negotiation on the future of the Heineken and Amlin Cups, has extended its footprint in the British and Irish broadcast arena by purchasing ESPN’s UK and Ireland channels for a sum believed to be around €25 million.
ESPN currently has rights to broadcast the FA Cup, the Clydesdale Bank Scottish Premier League including Glasgow Celtic matches, the UEFA Europa League and the German Bundesliga.
The ESPN America channels are included in the deal showing college basketball and football as well as NASCAR autosport.
ESPN Classic, a staple of late night viewing of great games from the past is expected to cease broadcasting after the deal completes at the end of July.
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[ismember]BT Vision will commence its own broadcast operations from the former media centre at the Olympic Park in East London during the summer.
This will include 38 Barclays Premiership Games a season, 69 matches from the Aviva Premiership and 800 hours of live coverage from the WTA Women’s Tennis tour.
No decision has been made on the Irish customer base of ESPN which currently receives the channels as part of a bundled package with Sky Sports but it is almost certain this will mean an additional payment as part of the new BT Sport packages, pricing details for which have not yet been revealed.
The GAA is currently commencing negotiations on its own broadcast deals which expire at the end of the 2013 Championship season.
It is very unlikely that key matches would be sold away from terrestrial television but there may now be some competition either for highlights packages or the Allianz National League coverage which currently forms a foundation of the Setanta Sports coverage.
The additional exposure which either Sky Sports or BT Sport might offer in European markets might be seen as attractive and with the principle of the National League Games being broadcast on pay per view already established it could also be used as an additional tool to boost attendance, such as has been the case at the Spring Series involving matches at Croke Park.
Marc Watson, chief executive of television, BT Retail, said: “We are delighted to have reached agreement with ESPN for the acquisition of their UK and Ireland channels business and that we have been able to add some exciting new sports rights to the ones we already have.
ESPN will continue to own and operate its existing digital media businesses which include multi sport news and information portal ESPN.co.uk, ESPNcricinfo, ESPNFC, ESPNscrum, ESPNF1 (Formula 1) and broadband streaming service ESPN Player.[/ismember]
