ESPN and SEC agree to 15 year TV deal
Aug 25th, 2008 • Football
Viewers of SEC football and basketball can rejoice, as their conference games will no longer be black balled from much of the ESPN/ABC family of sports broadcasting. The SEC and ESPN signed a 15 year deal worth more than 2 billion dollars.
The deal gives ESPN the rights to all home SEC matchups not shown on the CBS package. The deal is the longest contract ever signed by ESPN and certainly marks the SEC as one of the most distributed leagues in college athletics.
SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said of the deal, “This agreement makes the SEC the most widely distributed conference in the country.” The deal will also give SEC basketball a larger spot light as ESPN will air atleast 2 more SEC regular season basketball games a week and ABC will air the SEC tournament semifinals and final. Raycom Sports loses out, as their affiliation with the SEC will end with the beginning of the agreement for the 2009/2010 season.
The SEC dominance in football will likely continue as this deal only increases their ability to recruit blue chip talent. Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban reacted to the deal with confidence. “One of the reasons that this league has developed into one of the top leagues in the country is because we have tremendous exposure,” he said, “I think we had the best exposure from a TV standpoint in our last contract and this one is only going to enhance it more.”
Not only will the increased exposure help the league’s dominance, but finally being in a blockbuster contract with the most trusted name in sports will help their percieved dominance as well.