Premier kick-off puts Setanta back in big league

Like so many Premier League fans, Brian Quinn found himself hunched over more than one screen last weekend as the world’s most commercially successful domestic football tournament resumed.

An ardent Liverpool supporter, Setanta’s marketing operations director was more than happy with his side’s 1-0 defeat of Stoke City at Anfield but his committed viewing began a day earlier and concerned numbers of an even greater personal import.

Earlier this summer the Irish broadcaster agreed a deal with BT which, allied to its existing agreement with the EPL, brought to 71 the number of live top-flight English league games they would broadcast over the course of this latest campaign.