The Setanta Sports pay TV broadcaster has expanded and extended its rights deal with the German Bundesliga for the next rights cycle.

Setanta has renewed rights in 10 countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan) from 2024-25 to the end of 2028-29, and has also added rights in three Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, specifically for the 2024-25 season in that case.

The network has been the broadcast rights partner for German soccer’s top tier in those Eurasian markets since 2015 – the last extension was unveiled in October 2020 – but across the Baltics, the league’s current rights holder is financially embattled European broadcaster Viaplay, which is now pulling back into its key Nordic markets and downsizing its operations elsewhere (in December, it confirmed it would exit the Baltics by mid-2025).

Viaplay had renewed its Baltic Bundesliga rights to 2029, in 2021 – and this one-season deal by Setanta is likely to have been struck as a place-holder while the league searches for a more permanent home for its Baltic rights for the four-year cycle after that.

Adding another trio of markets for 2024-25 represents a significant boost for Setanta, which only launched in the Baltics in 2022.