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Deal agreed with ESPN
19:45, Dec 14 2009
Premier Rugby have struck a new three-year broadcasting deal with ESPN and limited the potentially crippling financial impact of Setanta's collapse.
The new agreement comes into force at the start of next season and will see ESPN broadcast 43 matches exclusively live, including one semi-final and the Premiership final.
Sky Sports will show the other semi-final as part of its package of 26 live games, more than doubling the number of televised Premiership matches from this season's 33.
ESPN have effectively taken over the broadcasting arrangement Premier Rugby struck with Setanta before the Irish pay-tv channel folded in the summer.
The original joint agreement with Setanta and Sky Sports, announced last December, boosted the Premiership's domestic and international rights income to £54million.
When Setanta folded, Premier Rugby were understood to be faced with the prospect of losing around £7million a season.
ESPN are understood to be paying less than Setanta for the Guinness Premiership rights, which will include online content for digital platforms such as ESPNScrum.com, but Premier Rugby are confident of still hitting that £54million mark because the new deal is understood to give them a share of broadcasting sponsorship revenues.
Premier Rugby's commercial director Jon Varney admitted they were somewhat fortunate ESPN entered the market to plug the gap left by Setanta's demise and needed more content than just Premier League football.
"It was a natural conversation we had with ESPN because we knew they were acquisitive in the market. We knew they had Premier League football content and that they were looking for other premium sports content for the UK market," said Varney.
"They were concentrating on the launch of their channel but we picked up conversations with them in early December. There is a lot of synergy there. They are in a situation where they are going from two Premier League packs next season to one Premier League pack, so they have effectively lost 20 games."
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