SETANTA SPORTS will make a profit of more than $1 million (€736,000) from its broadcasting activities in Ireland and abroad in 2010, according to the executives who helped to rescue the business from collapse last year.
MLM Management Ltd, the Irish holding company that took over Setanta Sports’ broadcasting activities in Ireland, Australia and north America last year, is trading profitably, and will post revenues of $50-55 million this year, its backers said yesterday.
Setanta has 250,000 “premium” subscribers in Ireland, Canada and Australia and is debt free, they added.
Setanta’s founders Leonard Ryan and Michael O’Rourke, and long-serving executive Mark O’Meara, were speaking publicly for the first time since its British arm collapsed in July 2009.
Setanta is also planning to launch a sports channel in Asia this year on cable and satellite platforms in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. This will be managed from its base in Sydney.
Setanta launched a TV service in Asia via broadband on February 6th showing the Six Nations rugby championship.
MLM is owned by Mr Ryan, Mr O’Rourke and Mr O’Meara. It owns 40 per cent of Setanta Ireland, whose other shareholder is concert promoter Denis Desmond. It also has a 50-50 joint venture in Canada with Rogers Communications. In addition, MLM wholly owns Setanta Australia, Setanta Asia and Setanta Bet. Setanta employs 150 staff in Ireland.
Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday, MLM’s owners stressed that Setanta was again in growth mode following a turbulent 2009 that saw its British arm go bust following the loss of football rights in England and Scotland.
“We’re still a big employer in Dublin. We only lost 15 staff here in spite of everything we went through,” Mr O’Rourke said.
“We want to build a profitable sustainable businesses. We will look at ventures outside of broadcasting where we can use our skills and contacts. Setanta Bet is one example. We’re feeling confident; it’s a good business and it’s back to expansion.”
At its peak, Setanta employed 450 staff, had 1.1 million premium subscribers in Britain and Ireland, and broke Sky Sports’ hold on live English Premier League soccer.
But it overstetched itself financially, raising €150 million in equity from investors and accumulating debt of €225 million. It was still operating in the red when the global credit crunch hit in 2008.
Last summer its rights to both the English Premier League and the Scottish Premier League, where it had 200,000 subscribers, were withdrawn and the British business went into administration.
“We’d taken the business in 18 months from doing £30 million a year to £30 million a month, so it had grown very, very quickly,” explained Mr Ryan. “But we encountered an economic backdrop that any business would have found difficult to manage.”
He said the company had always planned to raised another £30-40 million to get the business to profitability but the credit crisis put paid to this plan.
The MLM executives confirmed they invested millions of their own money in Setanta’s ill-fated expansion in Britain, included borrowed funds. “We didn’t just lose money on paper, we also personally invested in the second last round and it was a very significant amount of money and a significant amount of money for us personally,” Mr Ryan said.
Will Setanta re-enter the British market? “We might end up in business in the UK in something else media-related but in terms of launching a pay sports channel in the UK we’re not going to do anything,” Mr O’Rourke said.
