I wanted to stay in and watch the England game tonight but I Was amazed to discover that Setanta had outbid both the BBC and Sky Sports to air the game.

I first heard of Setanta a couple of years ago when they stepped in to show a couple of WWE wrestling pay-per-views that Sky had refused to pick up after Channel Four dumped them. Back then they showed the odd UFC show and a couple of Scottish football matches that Sky were not airing and mostly Irish sports.

This year they have exploded.

– They outbid Sky for the rights to air 46 Premier League games this season for three years.

– They signed a £125m 5-year deal to exclusively air Scottish Premier League matches.

They agreed a deal with Frank Warren’s Sports Network to exclusively show boxing matches involving Joe Calzaghe, Enzo Maccarinelli, Kevin Mitchell, Gavin Rees, Alex Arthur, Matt Skelton and Amir Khan among others.

They are also showing a lot of the cricket action and tennis, darts, American football and hockey.

I flicked over to the Setanta channel and was shocked to find that you have to pay to watch the channel. The price is a staggering £12.99 a month! £13.00 a month to watch what Sky Sports and the BBC were offering for free?

My first thought was “No one is stupid enough to pay an extra £13.00 a month for one channel.” But then again when the channel has the rights to almost every major sport then they will get subscribers no matter how much they decide to charge.