What you need to know about Football on TV

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Here is what you need to know about the new SEC television deals with CBS and ESPN, which start with the 2009 college football season: • Will there still be a SEC Television network? No. This deal effectively kills that idea for the next 15 years. This was an option the SEC was considering to get wider distribution of its sports and, yes, generate more revenue. But the SEC doesn’t have to do it now because ESPN will essentially do it for them by putting all of that programming on one of its vast array of platforms. • Will there be more SEC football games on television? Decidedly more. In fact, every conference game will be televised either on CBS or one of the various ESPN platforms. Last season nine conference games and 41 games total did not make it on the air. Schools will get the opportunity to broadcast one non-conference home game per season on a pay-per-view basis. • What happens to the 12:30 p.m. games on Raycom? If there is a big loser in this deal it is Raycom, which does the syndicated game of the week. After CBS made its deal for the first pick of games, ESPN stepped up to the plate and bought the rest of the rights and squeezed out Raycom. But the consumer will win with this one. ESPN will use its regional networks to provide games on free TV beyond the nine-state footprint of the SEC. “The syndication of these games will be larger than before,” Slive said. • So what is the TV pecking order now? CBS: Will continue to receive the first pick of games and broadcast the SEC game of the week at 3:30 p.m. It will have one prime time game per season. ESPN, ESPN2: Will televise a minimum of 20 SEC games annually, including Saturday prime time and two Thursday primetime games per season. They will take the No. 2 and No. 3 games. ESPNU: Will add a package of at least 13 SEC games per season, most of which will be in prime time. Later this year ESPNU is expected to announce an agreement with Comcast Cable to add the channel to its system to serve as many as 14 million homes in the SEC footprint. ESPNU is now in 22 million homes nationwide. The goal is to get that number to 40 million, using this SEC football package as a driving force. ESPN Regional Television (ERT): Will take the place of Raycom as the over the air syndication provider for SEC football (12:30 p.m. game). ERT will broadcast a minimum of 13 games per season throughout the SEC footprint and beyond. ERT will also produce and distribute a studio show dedicated to SEC football. “Basically ERT will go back to the same stations that will carry the Raycom games this year,” said Chuck Gerber, who served as a consultant to the SEC for this deal. “So that part will not change for the fans.”

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