The conference announces it’s retained the services of Evolution Media and Creative Artists Agency as its media advisors, in part to “assist the conference in its future broadcast rights negotiations.”
I presume that means Sankey will take a savvier approach to the SEC’s next round of television contract bargaining (next stop, CBS in 2024, I believe) than did his predecessor, whose after the fact realization that he’d cut a below-market deal led to the last round of conference expansion in order to undo his mistake… which, of course, has had a disastrous impact on scheduling.
Get The Picture 
2 Questions: 1) You think the SEC will hold a grudge against CBS, as Clay Travis (I know, I know) speculated last week? 2) You think the SEC breaks the contract a year or two early with CBS, takes the buyout hit, and negotiates a more lucrative contract?
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It would be incredibly short-sighted on the SEC’s part, as that’s the only conference broadcast deal on a national (non-cable) network.
Not to mention Clay Travis is an idiot.
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Breaking the CBS contract would be stupid. The 3:30 slot on CBS is the best slot every week.
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If it is The SEC on NBC, ABC or FOX, why wouldn’t 3:30 still be the best slot every week? Isn’t it the conference, not the network that makes it special?
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That’s true except NBC has Notre Dame (if home) and ABC has multiple regional games at 3:30 based on existing contracts. I believe FOX’s relationship with the Pac 12, Big 10 and Big 12 would preclude this.
There’s a reason CBS highlights SEC football on its publicity of its sports offering.
The relationship works for both. We don’t share time with other leagues and CBS gets the best conference.
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The network slot is a large part of what made the Conference special. That is why Slive didn’t worry that much about getting a below market rate for the games in order to secure a nationally broadcast game in the ideal time slot. I think that game / time slot had a lot more to do with the past 15 years of SEC dominance than most of us realize.
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Now that ESPN has gone pseudo-NFL with it’s College Football theme music, that SEC on CBS horn is enough to make the neck hairs of any college football fan across the country stand on end when they hear it in July. It’s all the nostalgia of CFB wrapped up into a few synthesized notes. Hell, throughout Richt’s tenure that noise could single handedly set my nerves aflame as I knew it meant a big game I had no clue if we would actually show up for. Now, it just sounds like victory…
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…..and I hate hearing what I associate with Sunday football on a college broadcast on Fox.
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Usually not a big fan of Fox sports, but Gus Johnson is the man!
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I’m with you on the SEC on CBS theme music. It used to get me super pumped. Now it lets me know there will be more commercials that actual downs of footballs. It still get pumped though.
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Why hire them this far in advance? It’s not like they couldn’t do it a year or even two in advance of the new contract. They, the SEC, will be writing them a nice check over the next few years unless they are wanting to start moving to something new or more deals or restructuring current deals.
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CAA, founded by Mike Ovitz who later ran Disney. I’m not sure about them these days but in the 80s and 90s they were the biggest and most powerful agency in Los Angeles. SEC goes Hollywood.
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It was a terrible deal for the SEC, horrible job by Slive and team, but if CBS wanted to continue to carry to carry the SEC games, they should have torn up the contract and paid up. It is far “below market”, it was taking advantage of a weak group of novices. Reports I read is SEC get $55MM for a whole season of games, including the SECCG, that is under $4MM a game. As a comparison, both the Sugar and Rose Bowl get $80MM for a single game, or $160MM. Really makes you wonder why CBS needs all those commercials.
If you are “partners” in the sense I define it, you don’t stick it to the other side. Very one sided, should have been rectified long before now. I wouldn’t resign with them at this point, there are other outlets available
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