FA Cup and Home England games leave the BBC and Sky

Crocker

ITV and Setanta Sports are expected to be awarded the live television rights to the FA Cup and England internationals, according to a report.

The Financial Times claim the broadcasters have offered more than £400million to take over the rights from the BBC and Sky Sports for four years from August 2008.

An announcement is expected to be made by the Football Association today.

The move will be regarded as a coup for ITV and will bolster their football coverage, which is currently focused on Champions League matches.

It will also add to Irish-based satellite broadcaster Setanta's growing sporting portfolio following their acquisition of rights to 46 live Premiership games from next season.

The BBC are likely to be left without any live football to show on their channels and the move will weaken the market leader Sky's dominant position.

The Phantom

I'm not a big fan of this. I hate ITVs coverage of football... The FA Cup Final will be ruined with advert breaks. Setanta Sports seem to be getting more and more football. It’s difficult to say if it's a good move giving it to them since I've not watched any of their football coverage yet. But I think at least the BBC should get is England games, be it home or away. All International games should be available on 'free' TV.

Luke-E

ITV football coverage is one of the worst, they just about do a good job of it but like Phantom i think international games should be free.

BBC should have done there up most to keep england games with them. I hope it goes back like MOTD did.

http://www.sportzworld.net/

God

Super Moderator

Sentanta is really coming along. Its part of the basic package here so for us it's free to an extent.
They also have the best annalists minus RTE Two's team.

Crocker

Doesnt Adrian Durham of Talksport do some work for Santana?

Mikk

WC's Sexy Beast

So let me get this right, we are now going to have to pay to watch some england & fa cup matches?


What a load of bollocks.


Nice way to isolate the people that are unfortunate enough not to have sky or a sattelite dish.


I know Sentanta is avaliable on freeview but you have to pay a monthly subscription to see anything on it and to be honest, i'm getting a little annoyed with all these changes.

God

Super Moderator

Is he the ginger guy?

Crocker

Yes he is

Crocker

No, all England home games are on ITV instead of BBC, the England away matches are negotiated with the foreign TV company so some games will be on either Sky or Setanta like they are now, the FA Cup is currently on the BBC and Sky, ITV are taking BBC's part of the deal and Setanta take away Sky's part of deal so the changes to the games on terrestrial TV wont be any different to the current situation

God

Super Moderator

I think ive seen him on a few times but not a lot. Setanta usually has Liverpool matches on the weekends anyway so i dont be watching every time unless they are against Arsenal.