Setanta hires IDS to sell Premiership

IDS has won the sales contract for Setanta Sport's Premiership games package.

IDS won a pitch against five other sales houses. The pitch was overseen by Richard Hall, the managing director of Setanta's consumer division.

Setanta, the little-known, but fast-growing, Irish sports broadcaster, won the right to air 46 Premiership games a season for three seasons in May, entering a market previously dominated by Sky.

Setanta paid £392 million for the package, which starts in 2007 and includes matches played on Saturday evenings and Monday nights.

The sales contract also includes the PGA golf tour, which Setanta picked up weeks after landing the Premiership contract.

Setanta was able to bid for the package after intervention by the European Union into how UK football rights are sold.

An investigation decided that Sky seemed to have too close a relationship with the Premiership and demanded that, when the next set of rights went up for auction, at least one other broadcaster should air live matches.

Setanta and IDS were unavailable for comment.

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