With the forthcoming arrival of Sky to our new place, the majority of folk know (those who are into sport, especially football anyway) it isn’t worth committing your cash to the dish without a sports package. As money is still a bit tight the full Sky Sports package (containing Sky Sports 1, 2 and 3) has been ruled out – as it stands at £34 per month.
This leave either Setanta Sports (containing Setanta Sports 1, Setanta Sports 2, Setanta Sports News, NASN + plus yucky Liverpool, Arsenal, Celtic, Rangers, Golf and Racing UK channels) or one individual Sky Sports channel (either 1 or 2, as Sky Sports 3 is a bonus when both the other channels are purchased).
As Sky split their football coverage between the two channels, with Sky Sports 1 getting the majority of Premiership games and Sky Sports 2 getting the majority of Champions League games (I’m not too bothered with the League Cup games, will just grab the highlights or see any mouthwatering matches in the pub) I’ve got a big decision to make.
With the majority of the football I’ll probably want to see is in the premiership, as there are more games, I’ll put forward Sky Sports 1 against Setanta Sports in the big showdow to decide which will make it to my shinny new Sky+ box. Any Chamipons league games that I do want to watch that aren’t on ITV’s schedule, ill just either pop to the pub or go visit my folks 
The verdict follows after the break…
The Big Showdown: Sky Sports 1 v Setanta Sports
Sky Sports gets an early head start with having more premiership games, the big games (i.e. those where the big four face each other) and works out cheaper at an extra £10 a month. Setanta does well to peg it back with the variety of channels on offer (fair enough half are crap) and the variety of football; Premiership, England, FA Cup and even the odd Bluesquare match (for when Oxford Utd games).
Setanta just shading it now with the mighty host of variety in football competitoions despite Sky Sport’s potential killer blow of more quantity (and controversly better quality) of games.
Sky Sports then plays their wild card; potential American Football games! What has Setanta left? Anything? Yes, boxing, including the incoming Calzaghe bout! All square again, this has gone the distance and is now going to points. Well with Sky playing the American footie card late in the match we thought it was all over but with Sky spreading their coverage of the sport over their three sports channels, which include the only 49ers game on SS3 it severely weakens the assault. Due to this fact and Setanta’s consistently competitive package, the grand prize of my subscription fee goes to Setanta Sports.
Well done Setanta I look forward to spending many eventful sporting moments with you!
So basically as stated in my lamely written piece above, I’ve opted for Setanta. Reasons: larger variety in football coverage, more channels and boxing (my gf likes boxing, extra points for that choice). Ok so there is no NFL action, but their is college american football shown on NASN and the NFL always runs way too late on a Sunday anyway! Even though I will miss the big premiership matches that Sky show, most of them are overhyped and end up boring, whilst I remember Setanta showing games like Man Utd v Newcastle last year which had like 6 odd goals in it.
Just gotta hope their offer of 3 months half price is still going on the weekend!
