SETANTA SPORTS, the Irish broadcaster that this month broke BSkyB’s stranglehold on the rights to live Premiership football, has appointed advisers to oversee a fundraising and a possible eventual stock-market flotation.

The company, which is 40% owned by the venture-capital group Benchmark Capital, is working with JP Morgan, the investment bank, on a fundraising that may involve bringing in another strategic investor or a combination of debt and equity financing.

Early-stage talks with private-equity firms about investing in Setanta are already understood to have taken place.

Under the deal with the Premier League, Setanta will pay £392m to screen 46 live matches for three seasons, beginning in August 2007.

Setanta has already recouped some of that outlay by striking a deal with BSkyB, the satellite broadcaster in which News Corporation, parent company of The Sunday Times, has a 37.7% stake, to distribute the matches to BSkyB’s corporate customers.

In addition to television subscription revenues, Setanta will also earn money by selling footage of its games to mobile phones and other new media. Company sources estimate that Setanta will need 800,000 subscribers to break even.

The acquisition of live Premiership rights caps a remarkable rise for Setanta, which was launched in 1990 by Leonard Ryan and Michael O’Rourke, a pair of Irish football fans frustrated at the lack of coverage of a crucial Ireland World Cup match.

Setanta, JP Morgan and Benchmark Capital all declined to comment this weekend on the planned fundraising.