Media

Setanta Sports trying to play the long game

Mickey O’Rourke: Setanta has made a good recovery in Ireland, with its operations here salvaged by O’Rourke, Leonard Ryan and Mark O’Meara
Mickey O’Rourke: Setanta has made a good recovery in Ireland, with its operations here salvaged by O’Rourke, Leonard Ryan and Mark O’Meara
Mark Paul's picture
Mark Paul
Fri Aug 09 2013 - 01:00

You have to give credit to Leonard Ryan and Mickey O'Rourke, founders of Setanta Sports, for their stamina.

The 2009 collapse of Setanta in the UK, after it paid the world for rights to screen Premier League games, would be enough to make most entrepreneurs crawl under a rock. Not the two boys.

Setanta has made a good recovery in the Irish market, with its operations here salvaged by Ryan, O’Rourke and Mark O’Meara from the rubble of the UK outfit’s administration.

It also recently snapped up the rights to screen Ultimate Cage Fighting, run by former Manchester City boss Garry Cook.

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And with the Premiership starting next week, Setanta will be showing BT’s packages as the British telco enters the ring to spar with Sky.

Then there's Setanta Sports Asia, launched in 2011 by the three amigos' Danu Capital.

Accounts were filed last week, showing Setanta Sports Asia is $2 million (€1.5 million) in the hole. Everybody has to start somewhere.

But the company did manage to attract €1.2 million in investment from a rather colourful outfit, Longkloof, which in the past made a failed bid to buy a US porn company.

It appears sports broadcasting is far sexier.