anyone know if there going to show the nrl when they launch later this month?

There's been no announcement that they've bought the NRL rights vacated by Setanta (though they have bought AFL rights). See rlthis threadrl.

No.

But they do have.

Premier League Football
Scottish Premier League Football
German Bundesliga Football
Portuguese Liga Football

UFC

AFL
Top 14 Rugby Union

and the usual American Sports that they show.

It's going free on Virgin Cable an all like Setanta did.

I'd be surprised if they picked up NRL but we'll see.

uuummm, so what are they going to do differently that'll stop'em going down the same road as s**tanta with exactly the same business model ?????

Er, they are a much bigger company than Setanta ever could dream to be. They are experienced in the North American market for over 20 years. They won't be making mistakes like Setanta did.

Well I understand that the free to air decision is Virgin's choice rather than ESPN. It's the only way really they can compete with Sky because Sky hold most of the HD cards in this country.

As for the business model - Setanta was a very small fish in a big pond. ESPN are already a huge worldwide company, probably even bigger than Sky in fact. They can afford to soak up any losses and have a fighting chance because they hold rights to sports across the world which can only help when building a channel up. ESPN also are working with Sky. For example Sky are doing all the production for their football coverage and also encouraging Sky customers to subscribe to the channel.

which essentially is against the EU directive on contract monopolies, SKY will be marketing it, producing it, getting it to air and even collecting the money , what a joke.

Even large companies will struggle to bankroll this business model, £100m+ losses per year will need some serious turning around at a time of alledged recession and bad consumer vibes.
As for subscriptions, well, who is going to sign up to any lengthy monthly contract after the last round of burnt fingers, Sky have always relied on subsidised boxes to tie people into 12 month contracts, ESPN have got no carrots to offer so this ain't going to happen..................

I'd really like to see ESPN succeed in being a genuine SKY competitor but there's nothing i can see that will make this last any longer than this time next year, especially as this is when their crown-jewel Premier League Football allocation gets halved.....

i hope i'm wrong

i think half the problem with setanta was that they massively overbid on all of thier contracts, whilst also over estimating the amount of custom they were going to get, espn now have all setantas records in order to gage reciepts and so will only have made the decision to buy out all the rights if they couldve made a profit

Free for everyone on VM in August only.

then:

Free if your on an XL package
£8 per month if you subscribe to Sky Sports Package
£10 if not.

Also we get ESPN HD and ESPN Classic

I'm getting proper ESPN at the moment, will this continue ????
more baseball than you can shake a stick at


Just been reading as well that everyone with the full Sky or Virgin package will get the ESPN channels free...... i hope they've got their sums right

that is the big problem, they know exactly what their outgoings are but they've absolutely no idea at all on income streams. I'd like to know how many of Setanta's existing customer base were subscribers to the full Sky package ?

The NRL rights have not been vacated by Setanta, those rights (the world outside Australasia) I understand are owned by Setanta USA who are still trading.

it's launched today btw...(on virgin media anyway)

ESPN uk goes live at 8pm tonight,though there was some golf on there this morning,ESPN america has been on since 6ish this morning and ESPN classic came on not long ago...