It was difficult to know which was the more obvious Premier League result of the past fortnight: the return of Robbie Keane to Tottenham Hotspur after his short-lived spell at Liverpool, or BSkyB trumping its rivals for the bulk of the television rights to show live matches for another three years.
By offering £1.6bn to scoop the crown jewels of top-flight fixtures, Sky simply blew its rivals out of the water.
Not that there were many of those rivals to speak of. None of the terrestrial players made a serious attempt to bid for the live rights, while a financially constrained Setanta, which secured the one remaining package, and Disney's ESPN, represented little in the way of serious competition.
Last week's outcome is not necessarily bad news for advertisers. For marketers targeting young male audiences, Sky has revolutionised the way English football can be used as a tool for promoting their brands.
That does not mean, however, that Britain's major advertisers would not benefit from greater competition in the broadcasting marketplace. Allowing Sky to buy five of the six packages is a mistake that the Premier League should rectify next time around.
The Setanta experience has proved that the incremental spending on marketing, presentation and distribution that comes on top of acquiring the rights can be justified only if a broadcaster has at least two of the six packages of games. Even then, some of the second- or third-tier games that Setanta has found itself showing have drawn poor audiences, which are as unattractive to advertisers as they are to fans. That serves nobody's interest other than Sky's, which has retained its stranglehold on the matches between the 'Big Four' (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United).
Partly for that reason, Setanta is probably the 'ideal rival' for Sky. It is already having to go cap-in-hand to its shareholders for additional money to finance the purchase of more matches. Compare that with the deep-pocketed ESPN. If it had made a success of even one package this time around, in the process attracting substantial audiences through its marketing fire power, then it might have been tempted to return with a much chunkier bid in three years' time.
That would be welcome, because the next three-year period will not be without significant challenges for the Premier League, and, consequently, for the marketers who associate their brands with it.
Last year's takeover of Manchester City reflated the English transfer market, but at a time of severe economic constraint, it has done so in a way that has distorted football's connection with economic reality. That is bad news for advertisers which wish to remain in touch with consumers.
In recent months, several clubs (including Everton and Newcastle United) have been put on the market by owners expecting the period of irrational exuberance to last long enough for them to reap huge windfalls, only to find the slump has already put paid to such ambitions.
Other clubs, such as Liverpool, have shareholders with big bank debts that are in imminent need of refinancing. All of this points toward a financial bubble which, if not exactly about to burst, is certainly strained.
Even so, advertisers should probably be grateful that ITV failed to lodge a credible bid for any of the live Premiership rights. After last week's fiasco in the FA Cup replay between Everton and Liverpool, when ITV cut to an ad break just as the decisive goal was being scored, there might not have been many viewers left to watch it anyway.
Mark Kleinman is City editor of The Sunday Telegraph
30 seconds on ESPN
- The ESPN network launched on 7 September 1979. Based in Bristol, Connecticut, it is 80% owned by the ABC TV network - itself a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company - with the remaining 20% held by Hearst.
- ESPN claims to be 'the worldwide leader in sports'. The core network is currently received by more than 98m households, but it has more than 50 business entities, from broadcast, cable TV, radio networks, syndication, broadband, mobile, web and interactive services and pay-per-view offerings to sports-themed restaurants, golf schools, video games, event management (such as the X Games) and branded trading cards.
- ESPN launched its HD simulcast service in March 2003. It is received by more than 22m households and available to more than 96m.
- EPSN International was formed in January 1988; its 45 networks reach 200 countries and territories in 16 languages. Its programming includes English and Spanish top-flight football.