It’s shaping up to be a busy fall of launches and rebrands for Rogers Media’s Sportsnet, which has announced the 100% purchase of soccer and rugby channel Setanta.

The channel, which is home to famed soccer and rugby tournaments including the Premier League and UEFA Champions League, will be rebranded as Sportsnet World under the new ownership, Scott Moore, president of broadcasting at Rogers Media tells MiC.

“Setanta is a successful niche premium sports channel. As we are putting all of our assets behind one brand it made sense to rename it,” he says. “As part of that, it made sense to buy out our partners so we would have a say in what the brand looked like and how it fit in to our overall strategy.”

Moore says the target market for the newly renamed channel, which launches Oct. 3, is avid sports enthusiasts of non-traditional North American sports like soccer, rugby and other “ex-pat” games.

Original and Canadian content on the channel will be lead by the also soon to be renamed Setanta Connected.

Other recent Sportsnet announcements include the launching of Sportsnet magazine, a bi-weekly set to hit the streets this September, and the rebranding of the Rogers Media-owned FAN radio channels to Sportsnet.

In addition to the Setanta acquistion, Rogers Communications also released its second quarter results yesterday. The media division reported a 13% spike in its media division for the quarter, which ended June 30, 2011, versus  the same period last year.