Raymond Snoddy greets ESPN’s entry into the pay-TV football market

After ESPN won the rights to show live Premier League football next season, our weekly columnist Raymond Snoddy says “Post 2013 Murdoch should watch his back. ESPN is no Mickey Mouse company”.

Lynne Franks, ESPN’s managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, has finally done it. The charming American with an uncertain grasp, at the best of times, of the offside rule in “soccer” has got her hands on two Premiership packages for next season. The Disney-owned sports network will also have 23 games a season for a further three years going forward – courtesy of the demise of Setanta, which went into administration today (Tuesday).

For the first time ESPN in Europe will have a flagship and for the first time Murdoch and Sky will have the prospect of really serious competition for pay-TV sports rights further down the track.

Franks always knew that buying rugby and cricket web sites and flooding Europe with American football was fine and dandy – but absolutely no substitute for live Premiership football. It looked very much like she wasn’t going to make it. ESPN lost out twice in the biddings, either because Franks was too cautious or had caution imposed upon her by Burbank. Now by luck or judgement she has swooped at just the right time, a few days after Setanta defaulted on the latest advance payments due for the 2009-2010 season.

Wisely she decided against bailing out Setanta – and just waited. Now she has got a bargain because poor old Setanta had already paid £40 million for next season’s rights and has lost the lot.

The big surprise is that ESPN got both available packages when Sky could have scooped up one of them. Either ESPN bid very aggressively or Sky showed an unexpected reticence – an unlikely story. Sky will almost certainly get the consolation prize in the form of Scottish football rights.

But pause a moment to shed a tear for Setanta named, ironically, after one of Ireland’s mythic warriors. Founders Michael O’Rourke and Leonard Ryan began so romantically – buying rights to Irish football internationals not on television in the UK, hiring a hall in Ealing and charging £10 for entry.

It was capitalism in action. They spotted a gap in the market and went for it. From such modest origins they created a business that was being touted as a possible £1 billion stock market float only a couple of years ago. On the consumer level the recession might not have been too devastating for Setanta, although the second television subscription would obviously be more vulnerable than the primary Sky service. Setanta has more likely been hit by the new caution everywhere in funding multi-million advance fees for something as intangible as television sports rights. But the real killer was the loss of one of its two Premiership packages to Sky from 2010. The odds tipped against the Dublin company and there was real concern whether one package would be enough to sustain the necessary subscription growth. In the end more Icarus than Setanta.

For now all the signs are that Sky and ESPN will rub along quite amicably as ESPN learns more about the pay-TV football market in Europe. Post 2013 Murdoch should watch his back. ESPN is no Mickey Mouse company.

Competition in the UK football rights market has been rapidly restored and that is good for the rights owners, the football clubs and the players they employ, and for those who fear a Sky monopoly. Unfortunately this is one of the rare arenas where competition is bad for the consumer in the form of duplicated, higher costs. And if the viewers want to see all of the televised games that means two subscriptions rather than one. You either pay up or miss some of your favourite games, or are forced to go down to the pub. Not the greatest choice. It is the clearest example of how money is drained away from football fans and placed in the pockets of multi-millionaire footballers.

It is unclear how many footballers voted in the European elections but they should say a collective prayer of gratitude for the unintended consequences of dogmatic Brussels competition policy.

We are where we are, and at least there is now an equality of firepower and expertise between Sky and ESPN, something that should provide an element of stability. But with two media heavyweights renewed efforts must be made to keep as much live sport as possible on free-to-air television. ITV in particular should resist all short-term temptations to throw in the towel because of cost. Top quality live sport – football in particular – is absolutely made for ITV and advertising.

The Government must also be resolute in defending, and even extending, the schedule of listed events, and the football authorities should also take advantage of the current chaos surrounding Setanta to ensure that England’s away competitive games should return to free-to-air telly. Nothing but nothing was so infuriating as finding out that England World Cup qualifiers were buried on Setanta.