Paul Finebaum gives biggest take of early SEC schedule plans: 'It's all under one roof'

SEC football TV rights now belongs exclusively to ESPN and their umbrella of networks as we head into a 2024 season that is completely different for myriad reasons.

With an expanded SEC, expanded Big Ten, and even an expanded College Football Playoff, a story like the SEC television rights going completely to ESPN might slide under the radar. But not for SEC Network host Paul Finebaum, who explained on a radio appearance with McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning that the new TV model is an important development for the league.

“Well, I think the biggest takeaway is it’s all under one roof,” stated Finebuam. “It’s a very big roof, but it’s still one roof, and that’s the ESPN/ABC/Disney family. And I think, while a lot of people may not understand what that means, it means to many that there’s flexibility.”

No longer are the days of CBS or other networks having to settle which games they’ll televise vs. ESPN. Instead, there’s just one captain of the ship, says Finebaum.

“Things can be done under one like-minded group of people as opposed to two or three. And I think we’ll know further in advance when games will be so fans can plan — they won’t have to wait until six days out, Finebaum said. “Overall, I don’t know if the fans will pickup that many things, but obviously, all of us working at the same company are pretty happy about it.”

Finebaum went on, explaining that the way the SEC is covered could change, and hopefully not for the worse.

“I frankly believe that means the coverage will be more consistent as opposed to a company doing the biggest game of the week and that’s the only thing they do, vs. ESPN, which is swimming in college football seven days a week,” Finebaum said.

However, Greg McElroy did raise one concern that Finebaum is really hoping won’t come to fruition, and that’s much more biased coverage of the SEC from ESPN now that they own the league’s rights all to themselves.

“I think that’s the one thing I hope we don’t end up doing,” said Finebaum. “The one thing about ESPN is… the fans depend on it. You walk into an airport lounge and it’s on, you walk into a gym and it’s on. What I mean by that is… fans want to know what’s going on, they don’t want things covered up.

“I don’t have any problem being supportive of the conference that we cover. Everyone does that. But one of the most interesting aspects as you go back in time when the SEC Network was formed, they wanted to be objective in terms of the news of the day.”

Paul Finebaum went on to compare how the Big Ten Network hasn’t always covered the negative news of their league so well, and he’s just hoping that ESPN and the SEC Network avoid the same pitfalls.