The long-expected announcement of the SEC Network came this week. It's a deal about longevity and revenue.
The Southeastern Conference and ESPN announced the 20-year agreement through 2034 to create and operate a multi-platform network that will launch in August 2014 and be based in Charlotte, N.C. The deal gives CBS Sports the one football game it has had each week for years (usually at 3:30 p.m. Saturday) and the rest of the inventory belongs to ESPN outlets, including the SEC Network.
According to several different sources for revenue estimates, the SEC Network could generate as much as $29 million per season per school, slightly more than the $25 million produced by the Big Ten Network -- which created the business model for conference channels that has produced huge profits and prompted imitators (such as the SEC Network).
The SEC Network could have some advantages, too.
First and foremost, there's ESPN's muscle and multi-platform promotional approach. While the Big Ten Network and partner Fox (which owns 51 percent of BTN) have set an impressive and profitable standard for such a conference channel, ESPN remains the biggest player in the big-money sports business.
In addition, the Big Ten Network has limited itself in a way the SEC Network might not. By not accepting ads for alcohol and other vices, the BTN has made money with some apparent standards. It's not clear the SEC Network would partner with such advertisers, but the SEC has never attempted to burden itself with all the academics-first and student-athlete rhetoric of its rival conference to the north.
Because ESPN has a 100-percent ownership stake in the outlet, the SEC Network could also impact everything from game selection to college football news in general -- including what gets covered and what does not. At the least, it will impact the perception of those things.
The 20-year agreement gives conference members guaranteed revenue, and a reason to stay put. Not that any school would consider leaving the SEC.
Last month, though, the Atlantic Coast Conference moved to keep its teams from departing through a similar approach -- when all current ACC members surrendered their media rights to the conference, even if they were to leave the league. Because TV money holds the key to any conference's lifeblood, that move prevents any program from exiting for the Big Ten Network or someplace else.
That approach was a bit more unexpected, an unusual, than creating a conference network, but it certainly made an impression. And it should keep the ACC together and viable -- perhaps for as long as the ESPN-SEC deal lasts. (Or at least until some other really rich conference, one like the Big Ten or SEC that has its own network, figures out a way to make a move somehow more lucrative for a school to move.)
While the ESPN-SEC agreement does not automatically result in riches for everyone involved, it's darn close, and work during the next 15 months -- as ESPN and the SEC Network iron out agreements with cable networks throughout the Southeast -- could hold the biggest key to what happens initially.
For example, Big Ten Conference officials had trouble getting some cable networks agree to carry their network (it took more than a year in some instances), but once a cable company came on board the channel could start collecting higher per-subscriber fees to carry the channel. If the rabid approach of SEC fans carries over to their cable subscribers, those negotiations could be interesting.
They'll either go quickly, because cable operators will know they need the programming to keep viewers happy, or they could become contentious and lag. In that case, it'll be interesting to see who gets painted as the bad guy in the process.
Either way, the profits will come for conference members. And with that comes a reason to embrace stability.
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