As Blutarsky pointed out earlier, the total payout for the SEC Teams prior to this new deal was roughly $120 million per year. With $205 million in total TV payouts starting in 2009, we're talking about incremental $140-150 million more for the SEC's members per year. Or said differently. Damn.(Image: Mike Slive is a badass)
Before you read anything else, read Tony Barnhart's take on the deal.
My Take on the Positives:
- Full Coverage - Every SEC Football and Men's Basketball game will be available via some CBS or ESPN avenue starting 2009. Last season nine conference football games and 41 total games did not make it on the air.
- ESPNU is moving to HD - To prepare for the deal in 2009, ESPNU is going High Definition (HD) this season.
- Vested Interest - ESPN's interests are now aligned more tightly with the SEC's interests. In fact, the future of the ESPNU network is directly tied to the success of this partnership.
- Near U - Tony Barnhart reports that ESPN and Comcast are in discussions to add ESPNU to as many as 14 million new homes in the coming months. The addition is rumored to be a part of basic cable packages. ESPNU is currently in 22 million homes primarily via DirectTV, Dish Network, Cox, Time Warner and others. The biggest provider that had not accepted ESPNU was Comcast.
- More Night Football Games - The ESPNU games are not a replacement for the Raycom Sports 12:30 pm games. Instead, it appears that ESPNU will be a nightly prime time "game of the week" which will be selected after CBS, ESPN and ESPN2 games have been slotted. I don't have an exact on this, but I'd guess this gives the league at least 6-10 more total prime time night games.
- Triple the basketball coverage - Self explanatory.
- Better regional coverage - The old Raycom Sports TV structure was a syndication style deal. Raycom would call on individual stations or groups of TV stations like WB36 in Atlanta. They would contract with them to air the 12:30 pm SEC game of the week. ESPN Regional TV is not a "network" just like Raycom isn't a network. It's more like a paperwork entity that's charged with finding a home for SEC 12:30 pm games (and other SEC content) for the season. ESPN feels confident that they will get better/broader distribution than Raycom landed...particularly beyond the SEC's nine state region. Translation: If you live outside of the SEC footprint, this deal is a win for you. The quality and distribution of the 12:30 game should improve.
- SEC TV Show - ESPNU will create and air a weekly SEC TV show. Imagine a mini / weekly version of SportsCenter for the league. (My analogy not ESPN's analogy)
- Coverage - Will Comcast get the deal done with ESPN to expand the footprint of ESPNU...particularly for BASIC cable. The success of this venture is riding on ESPN's ability to do the deal with Comcast. The Big10 Network and the NFL Network both struggled to negotiate with Comcast on the issue of basic cable distribution. However, neither network has anywhere near the power of ESPN. They have 11 months to iron this out.
- -- Full Teleconference Transcript - SECSports
-- SEC/ESPN Deal - Multichannel Magazine
-- We're Rich - EDSBS
-- Value. It's all Value - Inside the Sprawl
-- SEC Got Paid Y'all - DeadSpin
-- Did ESPN just kill Raycom - The Meck Deck
