Setanta Sports North America sent an email to its email subscribers on June 24 regarding NexTV, the newest IPTV network that offers Setanta Sports.

The message reads “Setanta Sports and NexTV would like to assure our customers that we are committed to providing an excellent product paired with excellent service. NexTV is an IPTV platform and is owned by Ethnic Channels Group, a premier ethnic television provider. They are completely unrelated to ITVN. If you are still being billed by ITVN, please notify your credit card company immediately as this is a fraudulent charge. ITVN has been defunct for several months and should not be charging for service.”

Reading between the lines, it sounds like the curse of ITVN has struck again and that it can be inferred that the number of people subscribing to NexTV for Setanta Sports service is much lower than anticipated. This is completely understandable though since so many customers got burned by ITVN because of the credit card charges as well as poor service and reliability.

It’s going to be extremely difficult for IPTV companies to sell Setanta Sports. ITVN has so ruined people’s first impressions of the technology that it’s easy to see why soccer fans would be reluctant to sign up for NexTV.

For those soccer fans in the United States who don’t have DirecTV or DISH Network but who want Setanta Sports, the choices are Verizon FiOS, NexTV, Gek TV and Setanta Broadband. If anything, Setanta is competing with its partners with its Setanta Broadband service. No numbers are publicly available but I wouldn’t be surprised if more people are signing up for Setanta Broadband than Setanta on NexTV and Gek TV combined.