The SEC officially announced the new SEC Network this week and while there are many battles to be fought, expect one of them to be over time demands on football coaches.  When the network launches in August of 2014, it will mean even more media attention, constant television cameras and hours of programming to fill each and every day.  Regardless of the changes, Alabama coach Nick Saban says he doesn’t have any extra time to devote to media-related duties.

“I think the time that we have to spend on media-related promotion, whether it’s coaches, student-athletes or whomever it is, it can’t be increased because we have other things that are important to do.”

Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze tells Brandon Marcello at AL.com he expects to do less interviews with reporters and fewer last-minute requests because of the network. “It’s about managing.”

This wouldn’t be the first time a television network clashed with a coach’s schedule.  Texas coach Mack Brown famously complained about the Longhorn Network last year, saying ”I didn’t ask for it.” The network taped the first 30 minutes of each practice which led Brown to worry that opponents were picking up valuable tidbits about the Longhorns.

Brown estimated he was spending six hours a week planning or participating in shows that air on the Longhorn Network.

There’s a standard answer that university presidents and conference commissioners give these days when asked about expansion.  “We’re happy where we are, but we’ll be ready if the landscape changes.”

So when Big XII commissioner Bob Bowlsby sat down for an interview with the Longhorn Network, what did he say when asked about his league’s expansion plans?

“We’re distributing the largest amount of money of any conference on a per-member basis.  We have activation on campus of our third-tier rights.  Nobody does it better than Texas does with the Longhorn Network but several of our other institutions are doing a great job as well. 

We feel like this is the right shape and the right size for us.  We also feel it’s a lot easier to get larger than it is to get smaller.  We are very content at 10, but we’re not oblivious to what’s going on around us and we’re going to be ever-vigilant about the changing tide of college football.”

With the possible exception of his use of the word “ever-vigilant,” Bowlsby pretty much said exactly what everyone else says about expansion.  “We don’t want to, but if somebody else moves, we’re ready.”

A few months ago we likened the current state of the conference realignment game to the final long, tense (and did we say long) showdown scene from “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.”  Our opinion hasn’t changed.

The only things left to determine?  Which league is Tuco, which is Blondie, and which is Angel Eyes?

After months of talk — heck, after years of talk — the SEC Network is just days away from being formally announced.  At noon ET, Tuesday in Atlanta, the SEC and ESPN will publicly share their plans for the new channel. 

SEC commissioner Mike Slive, university presidents and athletic directors, and ESPN executives will all be on hand for the presser.  According to The SportsBusiness Daily, the two parties have already begun calling “key constituents” and inviting the SEC’s corporate sponsors to the event.

The new channel is expected to be based in Charlotte at ESPN’s regional television hub.  (Note to self: If/when league expands into the Tar Heel State, prepare for cries of local bias.)  Sales for the channel are expected to be handled out of Atlanta.

It’s still believed the network will launch in August 2014, just in time for football season.

As we first reported in December, it’s expected member schools (and the SEC office which gets an even split) will bring in yearly shares of $30-35 million once the league’s television and bowl contracts are all re-worked and signed.  A USA Today sports analysis projected the same numbers in January.  Currently, the average payout for SEC schools is $20.1 million.

There is certainly the possibility for the league to bring in even more cash with its network down the road, depending on distribution agreements.  For a start-up network, however, it’s difficult to imagine ESPN — which has been stung by distribution troubles with its Longhorn Network — placing too large a subscriber fee on cable/satellite providers and their viewers right off the bat.

It is expected the SEC and ESPN will co-own the network with one party holding 51% ownership.  The SEC will likely be the one holding 51%, just as the Big Ten controls 51% of its network with FOX owning 49%.

Ol’ Project X — the SEC Network — yeah, it’s happening.  (While others will claim that they were the first to realize that the SEC could start its own network, we actually pointed out that a network might still be a possibility in spite of the SEC’s deals with CBS and ESPN… and we did so way back in May of 2010.)  Now The Sports Business Journal is reporting that the SEC and ESPN are “nearing their final stages” of negotiations for an SEC channel.

First, some details from The SBJ:

1.  The expected launch date for the network is August, 2014.

2.  Obviously, the SEC will need to get all its schools’ Tier 3 broadcast rights for the first time in order to make the network a reality.  If the league is this far down the pike, then it shows that Mike Slive and company have already shown the league’s 14 presidents that each school can make more money with a network than by selling off their own Tier 3 rights individually.  Now, this would suggest that Florida’s monetary advantage over Vanderbilt, for example, would close a bit as both schools would presumably take home an even share of network revenue.  Missouri and Texas A&M, welcome to the all-for-one, one-for-all conference.  (Florida, of course, will still make more cash than Vandy on merchandise sales, attendance, etc… but in terms of TV dollars — unless there’s a surprise clause in there — all 14 schools will grab an equal slice of the pie.  That’s good news for all the league’s schools as they all want more cash.  That’s great news for the lower-level SEC schools who can’t sell their Tier 3 rights like Alabama and LSU can.)

3.  The SBJ reports: “ESPN is not likely to partner with another media company on the SEC channel.”  That would a disappointment for NBC/Comcast.  (Full disclosure: I do occasional work for CSS, but the tea leaves I’m about to read come from my brain alone and do not represent the views of anyone at that network.)  NBC/Comcast recently gave CSS a more SEC-centric feel to its programming.  The goal?  To prove to ESPN that NBC/Comcast would be a good partner to bed down with on a new SEC network.  Remember, the key to any new network is getting carriage on cable/satellite outlets.  That was the initial problem for the Big Ten Network.  The NFL Network still fights that battle to some extent.  And just Google the Longhorn Network for pages and pages of stories on its start-up troubles.  Partnering with NBC/Comcast — something MrSEC.com mentioned last week — would provide ESPN and the SEC with immediate access to all those Comcast viewers across the SEC footprint and beyond.  And Comcast is the top cable provider inside that footprint.  If, however, ESPN does not partner with NBC/Comcast or some other cable partner, it could mean that the SEC Network will be in for the same rough type of start those three aforementioned channels experienced.  Yes, SEC fan passion is through the roof.  But there are a heckuva lot of NFL and Texas fans, too.  This will be an interesting side story to keep an eye on.  It’s a bit like playing chicken.  ESPN and Texas have wound up in a ditch — to date — with their Longhorn Network.  Might cable operators try to drive ESPN and the SEC off the road in similar fashion?  Most certainly.  To what extent those cable/satellite providers are willing to go will depend on what the SEC and ESPN decide to charge as a carriage fee.  That’s the price that will get passed along to you, the viewer.

4.  Interestingly, “sources familiar with the negotiations say that ESPN Regional Television’s Charlotte office likely will become the headquarters for the new SEC channel because it already has the infrastructure and talent to get the channel up and running efficiently.”  Meaning: The SEC Network could actually emanate from outside the league’s own footprint.  (And, no, that should not have any impact on conference expansion or realignment.)

5.  ESPN would likely take over the league’s marketing rights from IMG.  In addition, the network would take over television ad sales for the league.  This type of deal would really marry the SEC and ESPN.  Ironically, while folks across the nation complain of ESPN’s bias toward the SEC, the fans at all 14 SEC schools — at least the ones I hear from — all believe passionately that ESPN hates the SEC and specifically their own favorite school.  No surprise.  SEC fans would tell you ESPN loves Ohio State.  I lived in Columbus, Ohio and can tell you that Buckeye fans believe ESPN despises them.  It’s all a matter of perception.  But since ESPN will eventually own and cover every conference and team in the country — that’s the real problem, folks — bias probably won’t be an issue when it comes to “liking” one team or league more than another.

So what’s all this mean for you?  In the summer of 2014, you’ll probably be asked to call your local cable/satellite provider and demand access to the SEC Network.  That provider will tell you that ESPN and the SEC are asking for too much money.  Things will go right down to the wire and you might actually miss a few SEC games because of the hardball the SEC, ESPN, Comcast, DirecTV, Dish and more will be playing with one another.  But someone will eventually blink.

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Yesterday it was reported by The SportsBusiness Journal that the SEC is once again considering the launch of its own television network as part of its ongoing contract negotiations with ESPN.  It was also revealed the CBS is “balking” at making any significant increase in pay to the conference just because it’s added Missouri and Texas A&M in the past few months.

That’s all part of the negotiating process.  Not to be lost in all of this, however, is the possibility/likelihood that both CBS and ESPN would like to see the SEC adopt a nine-game schedule for football.  More “SEC versus SEC” inventory would be easier to sell for both networks than “SEC versus Jacksonville State” or “SEC versus Troy” type games.

The question is — how much is it worth to those networks?

If CBS, for example, says it won’t provide a significant bump in pay unless there are better games to choose from, that might encourage Mike Slive and the league’s presidents to overrule the conference’s athletic directors and football coaches next week in Destin… in what would be a very surprising move.  The same could be true if ESPN showed that having more SEC in-league games on the schedule would help gain a new SEC Network placement on more cable systems.  (For that very reason, ESPN is currently trying to land more Big 12 games on the schedule of the Longhorn Network it co-owns with Texas.)

The SEC is already working to improve the quality of its late-season schedule at the behest of its TV partners.  On the basketball front, one need only remember how the SEC yielded to ESPN over those Thursday-Saturday turnarounds that became quite controversial among fans and some coaches last winter.  Time and again Slive’s league has wisely shown a willingness to give and take when it comes to working happily with its big-spending television partners.

So if CBS and ESPN play hardball with the SEC while at the same time offering to open their wallets a bit wider in exchange for a nine-game conference slate, it’s at least possible that a nine-game schedule isn’t completely dead and buried just yet.

If those networks make it worth the league’s while.  Big if.

When the SEC and Texas A&M first started talking about a marriage during the realignment crisis of Summer 2010, ex-Aggie and Alabama coach Gene Stallings was one of the men pushing for a union.  Stallings was serving on A&M’s board of regents at the time.  (As we’ve pointed out numerous times on this site, A&M and the SEC had actually been flirting off and on with one another since the days of John David Crow, Joe Dean and Harvey Schiller back in the 1980s.)

Yesterday Stallings opened up again about the Aggies move, why they made it, and why he believes fans will need to be a little patient:

“First I didn’t want to go to the Pac-10.  I would have rather kept the (Big 12) conference intact (in 2010). Since it wasn’t going to be intact, I would rather go the SEC than anywhere else.

I think the Longhorn Network made it an uneven playing field (in the Big 12).  I could care less what Texas does.  If that is to their advantage, that is fine.  I thought it was to the advantage of Texas A&M to go the SEC…

You talk about going into the SEC… It’s a tough conference to play in.  There are just no easy games.  I don’t want expectations to be high.  (The Aggies under first-year coach Kevin Sumlin) are going to do as well as they can.  Let’s give it a little time.”

Cue the Texas and Texas A&M fans to bash one another over who started what and who’s in better shape moving forward.  That argument will rage on for years.  And if the Aggies struggle in Year One of their SEC era, you can bet they’ll have to listen to a lot of people say, “I told you so.”

But give it time — as Stallings suggests — and A&M should be A-OK in the SEC.  If Arkansas and South Carolina can become Top 10 programs in college football’s toughest conference, a school with the recruiting base of A&M should be just fine, too.  Long-term.

Wanting an inside glimpse at the backroom politics that led Texas A&M to jump to the SEC?  Then thank your lucky stars that The Dallas Morning News filed Freedom of Information Act requests with A&M.

The paper received copies of emails sent and received in recent months by school president R. Bowen Loftin and Aggie AD Bill Byrne.

The documents prove that A&M’s desire to leave the Big 12 grew from its outrage over Texas and ESPN’s Longhorn Network.  Texas’ plan to air high school games and a second Big 12 football game per year on the channel were indeed the major issues, as was noted by many at the time.

Among the documents are an email back-and-forth between Baylor president Kenneth Starr and Loftin.  In an email to his A&M counterpart, Starr pleads with Loftin to remain in the Big 12.

You can also read Loftin’s official letter of application to the SEC — dated September 5th… one day after Loftin’s email exchange with Starr — right here.

“It is my privilege to respectfully submit a letter of application for Texas A&M University to become the 13th member of the Southeastern Conference (SEC), the nation’s preeminent collegiate athletic conference.  As you know, we contacted you as we began our initial consideration of changing our conference affiliation in the spring of 2010, with special attention to the “fit” of Texas A&M within the SEC.  Over six weeks ago we renewed our internal discussions and reached out to you to reaffirm your interest in Texas A&M as a potential member.  We have come to the firm conviction that the SEC will provide Texas A&M the national visibility, financial opportunity and conference stability that we see, both now and into the future.  Moreover, we believe that Texas A&M is an exceptional match for the SEC in terms of our academic standing, traditions and culture, our commitment to building champions in the classroom and on the playing fields, and our geographic and demographic contributions.”

For those who’ve forgotten the timeline, in May and June of 2010, the Big Ten set off a wave of realignment across the country.  The SEC and A&M spoke at that time, but when the Big 12 was saved, the two parties wished each other well and moved on… until this July.  Texas’ Longhorn Network pushed Aggie brass to re-open talks with Mike Slive at that point.

The most interesting email was sent by Byrne to — we assume — Loftin on July 21st of this past summer.  It’s titled “Big-12 3rd tier issues or: Death by a thousand cuts.”

This is an internal email and Byrne’s opinions are just that — opinions.  But even considering that his thoughts were biased — he refers to the University of Texas as “tu” — a few points do stand out… and they don’t look good for ESPN or Texas.

The most interesting nuggets:

* Texas wanted to be able to pay conference rivals for the right to put their games with the Longhorns on the school’s network.  That wouldn’t do much for conference unity in the long haul as the peasants of the Big 12 would need to give away games to the King in exchange for a few extra baubles.

* Byrne writes that ESPN “threatened (Texas) Tech” in an effort to put the Red Raiders’ game with Texas on the Longhorn Network.  “(Texas AD) DeLoss (Dodds) acknowledges ESPN rep did that but he stopped them from doing that any more.  Privately Says he can control ESPN, publicly says he can’t.”  That’s a bit of a bombshell.  ESPN threatening a school?  Maybe Mike Leach isn’t so crazy when he suggests that the network — an SEC partner — blackballed him at Maryland last offseason.

* Here’s another Byrne note on ESPN: “ESPN pushing hard to help tu recruit high school prospects.  They along with tu lobbying NCAA hard to get interp that permits HS games on LHN.”  Whether the part about helping recruit kids to Texas was fact or fiction, Byrne’s words are now out there for the world — and ESPN — to see.  Did we mention that the network is an SEC partner?  Fun.

* “We need a backup plan.  SEC?  PAC-12?  Bigger-10?” Byrne wrote.

Turns out the SEC was the backup plan.  And now we know why A&M felt such a plan was needed in the first place.

Just to make sure you’re up on every angle of Missouri’s decision to grant chancellor Brady Deaton the power to look around, here’s a festival of links, summaries and our own opinions on what’s being said across the nation this morning:


1.  Deaton — who resigned as chairman of the Big 12′s board of directors — said that he will “be meeting (today) with my team and examining all probabilities, all options, that we want to look toward.  That will take some time.”

2.  Asked if a change could come before next football season, Deaton said, “I don’t think we know the full answer to that at this time.”  (Perhaps, but you can bet those SEC schedule-makers who’ve been toying with 13-team options will now be cooking up 14-team possibilities as well.)

3.  This Kansas City Star writer suspects that somewhere between 75 and 90% of Mizzou fans were happy with last night’s announcement.

4.  Kansas State AD John Currie — a former SEC assistant AD at Tennessee — had this to say about a potential Missouri departure:  “Missouri leaving our conference would be a tremendous loss to our conference, our heritage.  It would also be a loss to Missouri to leave, and I think most people at Missouri don’t want to leave.  I know that most people at Texas A&M didn’t want to leave the Big 12 Conference.”  Huh, say what?

5.  This contributor to The Star believes Missouri is a “poor fit” with the SEC and that they’re giving up “what would be a B10 bid at some point down the road.”  (According to Jeff Sagarin’s computers, this is a better move for MU basketball than football.)

6.  Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News doesn’t believe new Tiger hoops coach Frank Haith will be happy with a move to the SEC.

7.  PowerMizzou.com — the Rivals site covering the Tigers — writes the following: “Due to Missouri’s relative proximity to the current SEC schools and a state with approximately two million television sets, the Tigers have become one of a few schools in the crosshairs of speculation.”  (Hmmm.  Now, as I read other sites today claiming to have broken the news last month that Mizzou could be an SEC target, I seem to remember another site touting Missouri’s population, TV markets and proximity to the SEC way back in May of 2010.  We didn’t think it would happen in 2010 — and it didn’t — but this site was the first to identify Missouri as a good “get” for the SEC some 18 months ago.  For the exact sames reasons now being discussed.)

8.  Orangebloods.com — the Rivals site for Texas — claims that their sources have said “a deal was nearly brokered on Tuesday that would have had the nine remaining schools in the Big 12 granting their TV rights on the Tier 1 and Tier 2 level for more than six years.”  However, Texas balked at restrictions that would have been placed upon the Longhorn Network.  (In other words, “Hit the bricks if you like, Mizzou, we’re not changing our network.”)  The site also reports — with likely tippage from Texas sources — that the Big 12′s targets for expansion are BYU, TCU, Louisville and Cincinnati.

9.  Assuming that Missouri is SEC-bound and that the Big 12 will respond by raiding the Big East, won coach from that league texted ESPN.com this message last night: “the big east is finished.”

10.  Former Texas A&M and Alabama coach Gene Stallings believes we’re headed toward four 18- to 20-school conferences.

The University of Missouri board of curators has unanimously voted to give chancellor Brady Deaton “the authority to take any and all actions necessary to fully explore options for conference affiliation and contracts related there to which best serve the interest of The University of Missouri-Columbia.”

And somewhere, Chuck Neinas just threw up in his mouth a little bit.

Deaton said after the meeting that he will not comment on the SEC and will not discuss timelines.  He also said that MU has been given no deadline for committing fully to the Big 12.

And somewhere, Kenneth Starr just threw up in his mouth a little bit.

The takeaway from all of this?  Deaton wanted the Big 12 to survive.  That much he’d made clear.  But the board thought it would be best to explore its options.  Either a) Mizzou will now begin its march to the SEC in earnest or b) Mizzou has just used its leverage to try and force Texas to yield in some areas relating to its Longhorn Network.

Buyout talk — which started around $30 million for Texas A&M — has actually been kicked around as being $40 million for Missouri, should the school exit the Big 12.

Big 12 administrators and Neinas — the league’s interim commissioner — have said that their league would be viable with or without Missouri.  That likely sounds good to Mike Slive and company.  But don’t rule out Baylor’s president Starr when it comes to firing out some sort of punitive lawsuit should A&M and Mizzou both wind up in the SEC.

Finally, as we suggested this morning, Deaton has indeed resigned his post as the chairman of the Big 12 board of directors.

It’s gameday in the SEC for Kentucky and Mississippi State, but the focus for many fans remains on expansion.  With that in mind, we’ll start with a mornin’ roundup of league and Texas A&M expansion news:


1.  Blogging yesterday, A&M athletic director Bill Byrne lists Texas, ESPN and the Longhorn Network as reasons for his school’s departure from the Big 12.  (That’s a interesting stance since wherever A&M lands — and Byrne mentions the “Bigger Ten, Pac 12, SEC” as possibilities — the Aggies will still wind up partnering with ESPN on some level.)


“We anticipate that ESPN will continue to push the envelope with the Longhorn Network, regardless of Texas A&M’s conference affiliation.”


2.  Here’s what everybody — including several SEC coaches — is saying about A&M’s move.

3.  Here’s a simplified list of 10 things you should know about A&M’s move.

4.  The Rivals site for Texas A&M reports that A&M did a study of the NFL and MLB and determined that leagues are better off when everyone gets a fair share of the pie.  For the Aggies, this move was a business decision.

5.  This writer for FoxSportsHouston says A&M’s move is more about leaving the Big 12 than joining the SEC.

6.  Aggie football commitments don’t seem to care about A&M’s potential move to the SEC one way or the other.

7.  Aggieyell.com says that A&M can compete just fine in the SEC.  (This site agrees wholeheartedly.)

8.  The Rivals site for Texas believes Virginia Tech and the SEC “are starting to get to know each other to see if that could be a good marriage in the SEC East.”

9.  This ESPN writer says Texas now has an opportunity to shape the Big 12 even more in its own image.

10.  While this ESPN scribe says Oklahoma holds a few cards in this game and should they choose to join the Pac-12… the Big 12 could fold.


“OU president David Boren is charmed by the idea of aligning OU’s law school with Stanford and Cal-Berkeley; it’s fine arts school with UCLA and USC.  Academically, the SEC can’t compete with that.”


11.  But this writer for The Oklahoman says OU will have to play the waiting game.  (He, too, believes the Sooners will move west if they move at all.)

12.  Meanwhile Missouri’s chancellor — who is also chairman of the Big 12 board — says the league is committed to staying together.  He’d have to be pretty duplicitous if his school were to up and leave.


“… despite stray conjecture by some that the SEC wants Mizzou or vice versa, there is little to support the connection.  A person familiar with conference expansion talks said MU has hardly been mentioned by the SEC.”


13.  BYU gave a non-denial denial, but The Salt Lake City Tribune reports Cougar brass are already talking with Big 12 officials.

14.  Finally, Gerry Fraley of The Dallas Morning News provides Aggie fans with a school-by-school breakdown of the SEC.