Why would you not take $300 million a year from CBS for the 3:30 PM games and SEC Championship? Terrible timing before the OU/Texas additions also.
Sankey’s SEC Media Rights Blunder
- Thread starter SaltyCat22
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Why would you not take $300 million a year from CBS for the 3:30 PM games and SEC Championship? Terrible timing before the OU/Texas additions also.
Agreed. I can't imagine money was that much greater to lose CBS and go with ESPN exclusively. There's a prestige in playing that 3:30 game each week - everyone knows it's one of the two or three best games each week, and many weeks it's easily the best. Even if going to ESPN means more money, and I'm sure it does, it doesn't mean more viewers, and it definitely loses some of its luster. When you're on CBS you're the only game on their network. On ESPN you're one of 30+ games on half a dozen networks.
I’m kind of interested in this “B” package CBS is getting. If the “A” package is a noon game on Fox plus all other games except for the 3:30 and prime time games on CBS and NBC, then who gets first pick? Seems possible the CBS game will have first priority.
Won’t the game that would have been on CBS be on ABC instead?
AND ANOTHER THING.... Can you imagine Auburn-Alabama, Florida-Georgia, Alabama-Tennessee, etc... kicking off on an alternate network because the Vanderbilt South Carolina game ran long?
ABC merged its sports division with espn some time ago. I would expect, though I do not know, that abc will take the big sec afternoon game
If they have the rights to zero Big Ten games then the best game they will have to show will almost always be an SEC game.
When this media deal expires next decade, I’m sure splitting the product into more tiers will be on the table. Who knows what the conference will look like at that point.
By that point the Big Ten will have added teams from Kazakhstan, Australia, and whatever planet the Monstars were from.
I figure it will be similar to how ESPN and FOX have done recently. You get so many picks of games and it rotates yearly. After those picks, the games are then split up through the season week to week.
It sounds like this would make it a 3 way split for the top 3 games each week, but until the details are out we don't know.
More details.
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Before, CBS got the first pick of SEC games for the week and the rest were divided up among the various ESPN channels. Now the best game won’t necessarily be locked into the 3:30 time slot. There’s more flexibility with the schedule (something the SEC really wanted). There will still be a premier time slot at 3:30 on ABC for an SEC game, but now they have the flexibility to move big time games around to other prime time slots on ABC and ESPN.
My understanding is that ESPN/ABC-Disney are going to pay a billion for first pick of the SEC games each week, easily eclipsing the old CBS deal at $300 million.
And it sounds like ESPN has blown it’s whole wad, and/or does not value Big Ten games at the same level.
It’s actually the new ESPN deal that is $300 million per year. That is just for the best game each week. CBS previously paid $55 million for the same package. I think the other deal consisting of all other games is worth another $300 million or $400 million.
This is before the additions of Texas and Oklahoma and whatever adjustment may come from that, and the “other”package is nearly a decade old at this point. The conference has already taken out a loan based on expectations of future tv revenue and is making distributions of that money.
They turned down B1G’s offer of $650 million for their booty games. We could have taken the CBS deal in addition to ESPN for the 2nd, 3rd, etc. pick of games. Is my understanding anyways. Not sure why he locked us into one network but it’s the play on the field that matters anyway.
Even though Disney is not my friend…It’s war now. Will never tune into CBS or NBC or FOX in my household starting in 2024. And when SEC games are on, each TV in my house will be on the same channel. As will the iPad, extra cell phones, laptop, desktop, etc. It’s our duty to smash Little Ten’s ratings.
Not to be dramatic.
Sooner. Much sooner. CBS has already moved their desirable content to paid streaming platform. Doubt much will be free from here forward
As much as i love College Football that would be it for me ,,Not that i couldn't afford it But as much as we support UK with our taxes and by other means if it isn't free then it may as well be Professional Football which is all about the money!
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