31 Jul 2009Virgin Media subscribers to watch English Premier League fixtures

Football Sponsors/ Sponsorship and Media | Football Supporters News

Football fans who pay a subscription with Virgin Media may be able to watch English Premier League games free of charge this season.

The media company has secured a deal which will see a new ESPN channel aired from August 3rd.

Available in both standard and high definition formats to the company's 3.5 million subscribers, the channel will be free for all throughout August.

However, only those with Virgin Media's XL pack will continue getting the channel at no extra cost from September onwards, with fixtures from both the English and Scottish Premier Leagues on show.

Mark Schweitzer, chief commercial officer of Virgin Media, said: "This agreement solidifies Virgin Media's place as the home of TV entertainment and is unquestionably the best value TV deal for sports fanatics.

"We've got all the sports content you'd expect and adding the new ESPN channels to our line-up will mean our customers can watch all the football action they want."

ESPN claimed the rights to two English Premier League packages for the upcoming season after winning the bidding war for the games made available through Setanta's fall into administration.

Each package consists of 23 live games, with BSkyB holding the media rights for the other four live contracts.

Written by Craig Kemp

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