The SEC Channel to be announced on Tuesday according to Marcello who cites the Sports Business Daily Journal.
(yes, a widely anticipated IT, but an IT nevertheless)
(yes, a widely anticipated IT, but an IT nevertheless)
The SEC Channel to be announced on Tuesday according to Marcello who cites the Sports Business Daily Journal.
(yes, a widely anticipated IT, but an IT nevertheless)
The Southeastern Conference has completed the buy-back of its TV, digital and sponsorship rights from third parties, clearing the final hurdles to launch its TV channel with ESPN next year.
The conference and ESPN will make a formal announcement on the yet-to-be-named SEC channel, which will launch in August 2014, at an event Tuesday in Atlanta.
Like the Big Ten Network and Pac-12 Networks, the SEC’s version will be a national channel, with broad distribution within the SEC’s territory and sports-tier carriage elsewhere. Over the next 15 months, the conference will work with ESPN to build out its operation, possibly in Charlotte at ESPN Regional Television, and hire a staff, all while beginning talks with distributors.
The conference channel cleared its biggest obstacle in recent weeks when it reacquired the third-tier TV rights from IMG College, Learfield Sports and CBS Collegiate Sports Properties, the three rights holders that work with the conference’s 14 schools. Those third-tier TV rights represent one football game, eight men’s basketball games, baseball, women’s basketball and all other nonrevenue sports that are not picked up by ESPN or a syndicated partner.
Those live games will move to ESPN for the conference channel, which is an important development because it means that ESPN will control the entire inventory of SEC football games, with the exception of CBS’s single game each week. That gives ESPN a lot of flexibility to use specific games in markets where it’s having trouble gaining distribution. If, for example, one of Louisiana’s biggest distributors, Cox, is holding out and not agreeing to carry the channel, it will be easier for ESPN to place more LSU games on it to help it gain more leverage in those negotiations...
Why Charlotte (no SEC schools in NC) and not the ATL?