The Southeastern Conference and ESPN have reached a 10-year broadcast agreement to televise and stream league games in football and basketball.
The financials of the deal have yet to be disclosed, but it will most assuredly be bigger than the Big Ten’s deal and the most lucrative television rights deal in college football. The annual fee that CBS was paying the SEC was $55 million from CBS. The Business Journal is projecting a deal in the low $300 million range from Disney/ESPN. If that number is true, each SEC school stands to make roughly $20 million dollars more a year from the new partnership.
The hallmark of the new agreement is that the SEC Game of the Week will be moving from CBS to ABC. ABC will air an SEC-controlled football game each week beginning in 2024, including a regular late-afternoon kickoff. In addition, ESPN will have the ability to feature marquee SEC games on ABC’s Saturday Night Football for the first time, ensuring some of the biggest games in the conference each year are featured in primetime.
While CBS and the SEC have become synonymous on television screens across the country, the contract was outdated and not paying out as handsomely as other conferences, which had signed television rights deals more recently.
In the fiscal year of 2018, for instance, the Big Ten made $759 million, while the SEC hauled in $660 million. Those television dollars are split between the schools and, while the SEC was getting a lot of money from CBS, they were routinely outdrawing, not only every other conference, but the SEC Championship game in 2019 even outdrew the Clemson-Notre Dame College Football Playoff game from the same year.
The change, which will take place after the current contract with CBS is fulfilled in 2023, will move the SEC Championship game to ABC and the network added that they will have a game on each Thanksgiving. The conference can also broadcast one non-conference matchup on ESPN+ with each team.
“This new agreement was born from a strong foundation which began almost 25 years ago and now reflects a shared vision of the future with the SEC, Commissioner Sankey, and their member institutions,” said Jimmy Pitaro, Chairman, ESPN, and Sports Content. “With all the conference’s games under the ESPN umbrella and adding ABC and ESPN+ to our distribution channels, ESPN will have complete scheduling flexibility, resulting in maximum exposure and adding significant benefits for SEC schools and fans.”
Additionally, SEC men’s basketball will benefit.
“With the addition of approximately eight high-profile games per year, starting in the 2024-25 season, every SEC men’s basketball game will air across ESPN networks, including the right to put SEC basketball games on ABC.”
