Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Gators Sign New TV Deal/Raycom-SEC Relationship On Life Support

Reading between the lines in an article published Tuesday in the Orlando Business Journal, it looks like the new television contract with the Southeastern Conference will have some new dance partners.

Ahem... quote...

"The SEC is set to announce its new television contracts in August, industry sources say. By all accounts, CBS will retain the broadcast portion and ESPN will retain the cable portion, with ESPNU and ESPN360 also getting rights that were previously reserved for syndication partners."

Translation- looks like the 20-year relationship with Raycom may be a thing of the past. This also sounds a lot like the deal the National Hockey League signed with SportsChannel America way back when. The network waved a lot of money at the league at the dinner table and signed their viewership away. ESPNU is currently listed as having a reach of 20 million households. Their parent network, on the other hand, clocks in at 96-million households.

This comes on the heels of the University of Florida signing a new 10-year, $100-million deal with Sun Sports.sun sports logo

According to OSG sources close to the situation these two acts, probably, put any talk of a proposed SEC TV Network to bed. But, if the SEC still wishes to proceed with their master plan of controlling all content, the deal between Sun and the University of Florida will be put in the garbage can.

Jeremy Fowler's article from the Orlando Sentinel is hyah

John Ourand and Michael Smith's piece from the Orlando Business Journal is hyah

--Jon Nelson

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