Sky snaps up Premier League rights in Ireland as Setanta seals BT Sport deal

Pay-television broadcaster Sky has acquired six packages of rights in the Republic of Ireland for football’s English Premier League.

Sky will show up to 33 games at 3pm on Saturday afternoons as well as games on Friday evenings and Sundays in the new cycle, which will run for three seasons, from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Sky will show exclusive live coverage of up to 159 games per season.

“Five of the packs secured within the new deal will mirror the UK rights won by Sky Sports earlier this year for 126 matches, while the Saturday 3pm matches are solely for Ireland audiences and cannot be broadcast in the UK,” Sky said.

In other news, pay-television operator Setanta has extended an exclusive deal to carry pay-television broadcaster BT Sport’s channels in Ireland.

Through the deal, coverage of Saturday 5.30pm Premier League matches will be available to Setanta subscribers. The carriage deal includes the BT Sport 1 HD, BT Sport 2 HD, ESPN on BT Sport HD and the new BT Sport Europe HD channels.

“These channels bring a huge range of live football including every Uefa Champions League and Uefa Europa League game, live FA Cup, live Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1 and most importantly for Irish fans, from August 2016, BT Sport will have 42 exclusively live Premier League games, including the 28 Saturday 5.30pm games,” Setanta said.