SEC, ESPN form network

ESPN president John Skipper, left, SEC commissioner Mike Slive, center, and ESPN Senior Vice President of Programing Justin Connolly, right, answer questions from the media during a news conference announcing the launching of the Southeastern Conference Network in partnership with ESPN, Thursday, May 2, 2013, in Atlanta. The network will produce 1,000 live events each year, including 450 televised on the network and 550 distributed digitally. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jason Getz)

ATLANTA - The Southeastern Conference is tightening its grip on college athletics.

The league and ESPN announced Thursday a 20-year agreement to operate an SEC network that is scheduled to debut in August 2014.

SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said the SEC network will produce 1,000 live events each year, including 450 televised on the network and 550 distributed digitally. The network will carry approximately45 SEC football games each year, more than 100 men’s basketball games, 60 women’s basketball games and 75 baseball games in the first year.

No financial terms were released for the deal, which continues through 2034.

“There will be something for every SEC fan all the time,” said Slive, who promised “an unparalleled fan experience.”

The announcement came at a news conference attended by Slive, ESPN President John Skipper, 32 SEC coaches and each of the league’s 14 athletic directors. The emphasis was that this will be a national network.

“We believe this conference has national appeal,” Skipper said. “This is a national network. This is not a regional network. We understand that in the 11-state footprint is where the most passionate fans are, but there are a lot of SEC fans in California and Texas and New York and Connecticut and Virginia and Nebraska.”

The league’s coaches and athletic directors said having the national network will make all sports more attractive.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for the University of Arkansas and the entire Southeastern Conference,” Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long said Thursday through a university release. “The network will provide unprecedented exposure for our program and our university while providing more opportunities for passionate Razorback fans all over the country to watch our student-athletes compete.”

Arkansas’ football coach, Bret Bielema, described the SEC Network as having “vast value.”

“I think it’s unbelievable,” Bielema told Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter Richard Davenport during a radio interview Thursday on KKSP-FM, 93.3, in Little Rock. “The most important [factor] for me and my coaching staff, and really for all the coaches in the SEC, it’ll be invaluable three or four years down the road when you walk into a home and you’ll sit down with a young man and his family and they’ll say, ‘Coach, we’ve been watching you for years on the SEC Network, watching what you built … we watch your coach’s show and we like how you handle your business and how you handle your players.”

John Calipari, Kentucky’s men’s basketball coach, already has a national recruiting base but said the network will make all SEC schools more attractive to national recruits.

“Everybody’s recruiting stretches out because they already may want to play against Florida and Kentucky and everybody here, but being in the SEC means if you come with us, you’re not a regional player, you’re national,” Calipari said. “You don’t have to worry you have to stay home because that’s your fan base. Your fan base is national.

“You don’t have to worry about regional fan bases. You can go out and create what you want to create.”

Georgia Athletic Director Greg McGarity said more than just the football and basketball programs will benefit from the deal.

“In volleyball, we may want to go after players in California or in the Midwest,” Mc-Garity said. “Now they can see the SEC is going to have a broadcast of Georgia-Florida volleyball match on ESPN on Tuesday night at 9 o’clock. That’s the type of stuff you can only dream about. Now we have it unfolding. … What it does for your Olympic sports is just immeasurable.”

Still, there was no doubt what sport drove the deal - football.

Georgia Coach Mark Richt said the network should be another empowering tool for the SEC’s football programs, already the national power with seven consecutive national championships.

“My guess is there will be content there that will showcase our players, showcase our facilities and showcase our coaching staff and what we’ve done in recent past and what we want to do in the future,” he said. “It can only help us.”

Programming will include live studio shows, spring football games, signing day coverage, pro day coverage and shows such as the “SEC Storied” series. Conference officials also said the network will host “top-tier” football games rather than just leftovers.

While CBS will retain first choice of games each week - the SEC signed a 15-year deal with CBS in 2008 - the SEC and ESPN will determine the spots of the remaining games and, for the first time, will be able to schedule a game opposite the 2:30 p.m. marquee time slot of CBS.

The SEC will not add any more Thursday night games as part of the new deal, Slive said.

The network is expected to deliver an unprecedented payday for the SEC, although Slive declined to discuss figures. The true monetary value of the network won’t be known until all of its distribution agreements are signed, and even then it could be hard to calculate separate from the SEC’s overall deal with ESPN.

“I think it’s already been established that this network will be very successful in terms of distribution and development of potential revenue,” Slive said. “We wouldn’t have done this if we didn’t believe it was going to be in the long-term benefit of the league.”

The Big Ten and Pacific-12 conferences also have established networks, but Slive said the SEC’s partnership with ESPN is different.

“What’s unique and never been done before is partnering with our primary rights holder, which will allow us to move events seamlessly between various platforms,” Slive said.

ESPN senior vice president Justin Connolly said AT&T U-Verse has signed on as the network’s first distributor. He said talks are just beginning with other possible cable partners.

Connolly said the deal gives ESPN rights to oversee the league’s corporate partner program. In addition, ESPN will manage and run all of the SEC’s digital platforms.

“Nothing like this has been done before,” Skipper said.

“This is taking this to a whole new level. I don’t think our intention is to compare this to anything.” Information for this article was contributed by Charles Odum of The Associated Press, Josh Kendall of The State in Columbia, S.C. and Tom Murphy of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Sports, Pages 19 on 05/03/2013