Culture

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports_college/2008/07/big-ten-and-not.html Three media deals that affect college football have come down over the past two weeks, concluding with yesterday’s announcement by XM Radio that more SEC teams have signed up to have their play-by-play put on the satellite network. The first two deals, however, carry more weight: Notre Dame has a new five-year agreement (through 2015) with longtime television partner NBA. And the Big Ten and Comcast finally found a way to sleep in the same bed with the 2-year-old Big Ten Network. This all has led to much speculation, of course, including some here. It also has led to a great belief, including by Matt Hayes of Sporting News, that the next big deal coming down the pike will be the creation of the SEC Network. Contends Hayes: CBS has a new college network of its own -- it purchased CSTV last November -- but FOX's experience with the Big Ten Network (it owns 49 percent of the operations) and understanding of what it takes to run the show will drive the price of the SEC contract to record figures. CBS is desperate to keep the SEC, just like CBS was desperate to keep the NCAA Tournament in 1999 and forked over an unfathomable $6 billion to do it. Now CBS sees the SEC is flirting with FOX, which is drunk off the success of its BCS bowl package and badly wants games in the regular season. This, boys and girls, is what we call capitalism. The SEC has the supply and will demand millions upon millions for it. Eventually, someone has to pay for that fat contract one way or the other. All quite possible, by the way. But it’s not that easy. First -- and always remember this -- the SEC is a league that is often guided by tradition. For example, the league has often refused to abandon the Sugar Bowl despite a slew of media relations disasters and (of course) the aging of the Louisiana Superdome. Were it not for the SEC, the Sugar Bowl would be out of the BCS already. In terms of TV, the league has a long-standing deal with Jefferson-Pilot. Jimmy Rayburn has been the lead syndications rights holder for two decades. That doesn’t figure to change, although there is growing speculation that a growing player in the Southeastern TV syndication game is ISP Sports. (ISP, run by Ben Sutton, has acquired multi-media rights of nearly four dozen properties, and that number is growing. And now ISP is wants to branch out.) No question Fox could -- and might -- drive up the numbers if it decides to go after the SEC. If the network is going to continue to be the network of the BCS, at some point it has to do more with college football’s regular season, don’t you think? And there’s nothing the SEC would like better than to entertain a second suitor for rights. And in the end, CBS will come back and pony up more money and the SEC will say, “We love CBS and we like playing ball with people we’re familiar with.” orlando sentinel 7/3/08