Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Nail-biting time

Setanta Sports is selling NASN. Before NASN was launched us European-resident baseball (& hockey & basketball & football) fans had to live without television coverage. Today, of course, you can watch on the PC, but the quality is nothing like a genuine television signal coming into a television. Someday, maybe, but not yet.

So, now NASN has been sold to ESPN, which is well known to all American sports fans. There are three reasons I'm uneasy about this deal:
  1. if ESPN is looking to develop a big presence in Europe I don't really see how offering what is not much more than a service for expatriate Americans & Canadians is helping them in this regard

  2. Setanta has in the past few months begun using its other channels to broadcast extra American sports programming after midnight, which allows us to choose which game we want. I can't see this arrangement being continued

  3. Setanta's deal with my cable company - NTL - has kept the subscription down below what others pay for NASN. Again, I doubt this will continue when ESPN takes over.