SETANTA SPORTS and Benchmark Capital Europe are planning to offload NASN, a specialist television channel showing American sports, for €70m to help fund their burgeoning portfolio of live football and golf television rights. The pair are in advanced talks with ESPN, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company, and a deal is expected to be concluded in the coming weeks.

The sale price would represent a significant turn for Setanta and Benchmark, which took joint control of the business only 16 months ago.

In a two-stage transaction, Setanta acquired the 70% of the business it did not own from Paul Allen, an American billionaire and co-founder of Microsoft. The sale price was not disclosed.

Setanta then offloaded 50% of the channel to Benchmark, with the Anglo-Irish private- equity group reported to have paid about €20m for its share. This means the business has almost doubled in value since June 2005. Benchmark is also an investor in Setanta, owning about 40% of the equity.

The pair is expected to reinvest the proceeds in the Setanta Sports business.

Setanta is seeking to raise about €300m from investors to help pay for live English Premiership and American PGA golf rights.

Benchmark, whose European partners include Irishman Barry Maloney, is expected to lead the funding round. JP Morgan, an investment bank, is advising the company on the fundraising.

The company founded by Leonard Ryan and Michael O’Rourke is considering selling other non-core assets.

NASN was launched in 2002. It is available to about 250,000 people in Britain on cable and satellite and about 1.5m in the rest of Europe. In the UK and Ireland, it is bundled with other Setanta sports channels.

In March, NASN paid more than $20m (€15.9m) to show live baseball in Britain and on the continent for five years. It said the baseball rights could help it attract up to 10m subscribers. It also shows basketball, American football and ice hockey and college sports.

ESPN, the world’s largest sports network, shows a similar range of American sports and is trying to build its presence across Europe.

Setanta recently secured the British and Irish rights to US tournament golf for six years in a deal believed to be worth €150m. The rights were previously held by Sky Sports.

Setanta is also paying £392m (€585m) to screen 46 live English Premier League matches each season for three years, starting next August.

In Ireland, the company has won the rights to show 32 live Premiership games on Saturday afternoons.

It recently extended a deal with the SPL in Scotland to show more live games for another four years for £55m. The broadcaster has 150,000 subscribers in Britain, but is understood to need about 750,000 customers to make its Premiership rights pay.

It also has the rights to Champions League soccer for Ireland.