"THIS is a great day for Scottish sports fans," said Ian Livingston.
The Celtic Football Club director was referring not to another league success for the Hoops but the launch of three sports channels by BT, the telecoms giant of which he is chief executive.
Its offering includes 40 Scottish Premier League and Scottish Football League games a season.
In an unexpectedly aggressive move by BT, the channels will be offered free to its own broadband customers.
This plants the former nationalised utility's flag firmly in territory occupied by BSkyB which has been highly successful in attracting customers to combined television, broadband internet and phone packages.
The move comes after months of rising tensions between the rivals, notably over Sky's refusal to screen adverts for BT's sports offering on its own sports channels.
There are a number of uncertainties in BT's landgrab.
It appears to rely on a latent appetite for television channels among those for whom a Freeview box has been more than adequate for some time.
BT also reckons there are also lots of pubs whose owners would like to screen more sport but who do not want to pay prevailing rates.
BT has avoided the mistakes made by many operators who sought to compete with Sky while providing programming on the cheap.
It has hired top flight presenters. It has also launched a big advertising drive. It was no doubt a signal of intent that no corner of BT's head office in London appeared to be without a Clare Balding cut-out yesterday.
BT has assured investors there will be just a one-year hiatus in profit growth as it launches its sports drive. Missing this pledge would be a terrible own-goal.
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