SEC in good position for TV as new deals loom
Sometime soon, maybe next week, maybe next month and at least by the time August gives way to September, the SEC will announce its new football television deals.
The current contracts (with CBS, ESPN and Raycom), which run out at the end of the 2008-09 academic year, were worth $50 million to the conference in fiscal year 2007 alone. The new ones, rest assured, will be worth more.
Given that football television contracts already account for more than a third of the conference's budget, it's impossible to exaggerate the importance of the relationship between television and major college athletics.
"It's the lifeblood of it," said former Georgia head football coach Jim Donnan, who has seen the business from both sides after serving as an analyst for ESPN after his time with the Bulldogs ended. "When you look at what the SEC is bringing home, it's incredible. You can't have these Olympic sports and these other sports operating with the budgets they have without (that money)."
The major players in the discussions that will lead to the new deals - from SEC commissioner Mike Slive to UGA president Michael Adams to ESPN executives - have been reluctant to talk much about the matter this summer, but one thing is clear, the SEC is in a tremendous bargaining position.
The conference has produced the past two BCS national champions, two of the past three men's basketball champions and the past two women's basketball national champions. Nine of the league's 12 football teams (with Vanderbilt, Mississippi and Mississippi State being the only exceptions) played to at least 96 percent capacity in their stadiums last year, and half of the schools averaged more than 100 percent of their stadium's capacity for each home game.
"You never want to discount the fact that part of our success is our fans and the culture of our region," Slive said. "Success on the field is helpful, and it is important, but what is also important is the fact that our fans have demonstrated a tremendous interest in what we do as a league. That's not lost on people who are interested in carrying our events."
Who those people are is not something Slive is willing to discuss, but the current partners all hope to be involved again, and "other entities" have made pitches, as well, he said. The league will consider the matter "carefully, deliberately and quietly," he said.
The biggest question mark in the negotiations is whether the SEC will start its own network, a model established by the Big Ten and Mountain West conferences.
If The SEC Channel becomes a reality, it will replace the deal currently in place with Raycom, not the national network deal (CBS) or the regional deal (ESPN). In short, the future of the early SEC game on most Saturdays, the Mississippi State vs. Auburn and Arkansas vs. Kentucky variety, is what is at stake.
Slive said four factors go into the decision to form a network: content, management, money and distribution. The first three are no sweat. The key word for fans is "distribution."
How many people would have access to SEC TV? It took more than a year of bitter negotiations for the Big Ten Network to get a spot on Comcast, the nation's largest cable provider, meaning that most homes in Big Ten country had no way to access the channel and missed all the football games it broadcast. Even now that a deal has been reached, it's likely the network will be part of Comcast's digital level of service after this season, meaning many customers would have to increase their service package to get the channel.
"If (the SEC) goes to a channel model, it's going to affect Joe Blow in that fewer Joe Blows can see it," said Jimmy Rayburn, Raycom's vice president of operations. "Even the most optimistic distribution model is not 100 percent. If they go the channel route, people will be disenfranchised. They will choose not to pay for it, or they won't be able to get because they're in the country. There will be a fairly significant number of people (who will not see the potential new channel)."
The SEC will take that very much into account in its decision-making.
"What you are thinking about at all times is your fans," Slive said. "You want your fans to be able to see your kids play."
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SEC in good position for TV as new deals loom
