Setanta Sports was established in the United States in 1996. It began as a Pay Per View and Closed Circuit television business, and was extremely successful in serving a passionate audience of primarily European expatriates by providing live sports broadcasts to pubs and clubs across the country. On April 26, 2005, a full sports television channel dedicated to distinctly European and international football, world-class rugby and other sports, was established. The channel successfully launched with the live broadcast of the Champions League on the DIRECTV platform as a premium channel.
Setanta Sports employs over 300 staff in its offices in Dublin, London, Glasgow, San Francisco and Sydney. It is a private group of companies with its founders retaining the majority shareholding. Other shareholders include AIG, the US investment fund, and Indigo Holdings, the group owned by Michael Watt, the former Chairman of Octagon CSI. Michael Watt is a non-executive director of Setanta Sports along with Steve Bornstein, the former President and CEO of ESPN and ABC Sport, Richard Brooke, the former CFO of BSkyB plc, and Trevor East, former head of Sky Sports. Benchmark Capital (who represent much of the money behind eBay) are also now a major shareholder in Setanta Sports and see Setanta as one of the most exciting new media companies in the world.
Setanta Sports worldwide is a leading international pay television broadcaster and the number two sports broadcaster in the UK. It provides top sports leagues and events to over 100 million digital television homes worldwide and to over 2,500 bars and clubs in the digital television markets of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany and Australia. The company established its reputation broadcasting top live sports competitions and events on a pay and pay-per-view basis including the European Football Championship, Rugby World Cup, The Champions League, Gaelic Games, The FA Cup, The UEFA Cup, International Cricket, World Title Boxing, Six Nations Rugby, The Scottish Premier League, WWE Wrestling and many more.
In 2002, Setanta Sports began to develop subscription television channels to complement its sports pay-per-view operations. Today, in addition to Setanta Sports in the USA and the new Setanta Sports in Canada, it operates more sports channels than any other broadcaster in the United Kingdom and Ireland. These include Setanta Sports UK, Setanta Sports Ireland, North American Sports Network (NASN), Celtic TV, Rangers TV and Racing UK. Setanta Sports has the exclusive rights to the English Premier League for 78 matches per year in Ireland from 2006 - 2010, 48 matches per year in England from 2007 - 2010, as well as 90 matches this year in the USA. Setanta has the exclusive rights to the entire Scottish Premier League season in England, Ireland, Scotland, the USA, Canada, and Australia.
Setanta Sports was formed due to the football passion of its co-founders Michael O'Rourke and Leonard Ryan. Living in London and frustrated at the lack of live coverage in London of the Ireland v Holland World Cup clash in 1990, the two negotiated broadcasting rights and put the event on in Ealing. A thousand like-minded fans turned up and Setanta Sports was born. The word 'Setanta' is taken from one of Ireland's great heroes, 'Cúchulainn', which means the 'hound of Cullan'. As a child, this great hero's name was 'Setanta' meaning 'the little'. He was given the name Cúchulainn when he killed the fearsome watchdog of the smith Cullan, by hitting a sliotar (the small ball used in hurling) down the animal's throat. Having killed the watchdog, he undertook to guard Cullan's house in place of the hound.