Setanta ‘delighted’ with Champions League deal

Subscription channel Setanta Sports has trumpeted itself as "the big winners" from the distribution of Champions League and Europa League television rights in Ireland for the next three years.

Setanta confirmed yesterday it had acquired live rights to both the Champions League and Europa League in Ireland for three years from 2015/16 — though the “exclusively live” claim is misleading, with TV3 and RTÉ continuing to show free-to-air live games until 2018.

What the Setanta Sports package will have is live coverage from the full suite of Champions League games on a given night.

The Setanta “sports pack”, including matches on BT Sport, will allow Irish subscribers watch all the live televised games from both tournaments until 2018.

The announcement piggybacks on BT Sport’s acquisition of all the live rights to the Champions League and the Europa League in Britain from 2015-16 to 2017-18.

The Setanta “sports pack” includes Setanta Ireland, Setanta 1, BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2 and ESPN.

“In the group stages the Setanta Sports Pack will show all Tuesday games live, all Wednesday games live and all Thursday games exclusively live,” said Setanta marketing director Brian Quinn:

“We are very grateful to Uefa for entrusting us with these rights. It is a relationship that goes back to 2004, when we first started broadcasting live European action so we are delighted to build on that relationship.”

However RTÉ’s retention of live Wednesday night Champions League rights, plus highlights for RTÉ2 for the next three seasons, represents a “great result” for Montrose, head of sport Ryle Nugent said before Christmas.

TV3 also retained its “exclusive free-to-air” live Tuesday night Champions League rights in Ireland for the next three seasons.