Virgin Media and ESPN

[Detomah]

I think most already knew that ESPN were going to be taking over where Setanta left off, hopefully doing a better job of it and that they had long since agreed a deal with SKY, well now it appears they have cut the deal with Virgin Media too...

Virgin Media is to carry ESPN’s standard and HD channels in time for the upcoming Premier League season.

ESPN and ESPN HD, which will screen 46 Premier League matches in the 2009-10 season, will be made available at no extra cost to XL customers, along with ESPN Classic

The deal mirrors Virgin Media’s previous arrangement with Setanta Sports prior to the Irish broadcaster’s UK business entering administration last month.

Virgin will also push ESPN to subscribers to its cheaper packages throughout August in a bid to encourage them to upgrade, making the channel available to some 3.5m homes.

Subscribers to Virgin Media’s M or L tiers will still have ESPN Classic and can subscribe to the premium channels for an additional £8 per month if taken with the Sky Sports channels or £10 separately.

ESPN HD will be the sixth HD channel added to the Virgin Media service, joining BBC HD and Living HD and three channels due to be added this month: FX HD, MTVNHD and National Geographic HD.

Particularly chuffed here, as it means I still get to see those games for free, without having to fork out extra. Not giving Sky any of my money....

I just hope they are planning on bidding and winning the rights for more games in future seasons and are not just planning on running down this current batch and then plan on backing off again.

[Laz]

And it looks like we're going to get more UK and Euro soccer over here in the US. Everyone wins!

Of course, you'll have to get used to the US brand of sports reporting - SportsCenter is nothing like SkySportsNews.

[Detomah]

Originally Posted by Laz

And it looks like we're going to get more UK and Euro soccer over here in the US. Everyone wins!

Of course, you'll have to get used to the US brand of sports reporting - SportsCenter is nothing like SkySportsNews.

lol, I have to say, my sources of viewing matches has been from a whole variety of online feeds, tv, official club sites, foreign satallite, etc, etc, anything to get legal matches for free, with all kinds of languages being spoken and all manner of styles, so to have the normal American media style, it will at least be in English and is always enthusiastic, so that's me a happy bunny. Shame there's only 1 Sunderland game looking it at it this season with ESPN, the rest will be on Sky, which means either finding pubs showing the game, or back to the online feeds.