Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB seems likely to hold most of the rights after winning three of the six packages on offer in a faster-than-expected result to bidding last Friday. Financial details were not disclosed. All parties to a second round of bidding, which the Premier League said would begin "in due course", are bound by confidentiality agreements. Cable company NTL, which would market its service as Virgin Sports after its recent tie-up with Richard Branson, is expected to remain in until the last.

"I think Sky will wind up taking five of the six packages and Setanta will take the remaining one, " said Theresa Wise, media analyst with Accenture in London. "It will put Setanta on the map in a serious way in the UK market, " she said.

"They proved they could work effectively out of the domestic market with the Scottish Premiership deal.

This says they're here to stay."

Sky enjoyed a 14-year monopoly on the live broadcasts of English Premiership matches. Its £1.02b purchase of 138 matches per season for three years until 2007.

After pressure from Brussels, the league agreed to divide up the rights to the matches into six bundles of 23 matches, spread over a complicated mixture of platforms and times, including new rights like delivering matches to mobiles and over broadband. No one company will be permitted to hold all six packages.

NTL is expected to continue the fight to challenge Sky, but to be dominant it would have had to win at least four of the packages, according to Wise.

London City analysts speculated that if the bidding continued to spiral, Setanta might be priced out of the running.

If successful, however, the low-profile Setanta founders Michael O'Rourke and Leonard Ryan, who started the company in 1990 out of frustration at the lack of coverage of an Ireland v Holland World Cup clash, would be thrust into the limelight.

"It will be harder for them to stay under the radar, " Wise said. "It's the price of success."