The Southeastern Conference’s biggest football games, including the SEC Championship and — in most years — the Iron Bowl, will be on a new channel in a few short years.
Industry website SportsBusinessDaily (SBD) officially confirmed on Thursday that Disney reached an agreement with college football’s premier conference to purchase the package of premium afternoon games that have aired on CBS since 1996.
Disney, which owns both ESPN and ABC, will pay the SEC over $300 million every year for the rights, for a total of more than $3 billion over the 10-year life of the contract.
CBS had been paying $55 million per year under a deal struck in 2008.
SBD reports, “As part of the package, ABC will carry an SEC football game in a late afternoon window on Saturdays starting in 2024. That game will be branded as ‘SEC on ABC.’ The deal also allows ABC to schedule SEC games on its “Saturday Night Football” series and gives ABC rights to the SEC Championship game every year.”
ESPN and the SEC were already deeply connected business partners before the rich deal announced on Thursday. The network produces the conference’s SEC Network under a multi-decade deal signed in 2013.
CBS will continue to air the premium package of SEC football games for the next three seasons.
SBD first reported in 2019 the shift in channels was likely. It was at that point that CBS announced it would not be matching the leading offers. Fox Sports was reported to have been in contention for the package at the time, but Disney, via ESPN/ABC, was always seen as the frontrunner.
ESPN also gets eight top men’s basketball games each year as part of the deal, and the network’s ESPN+ streaming service will get “one non-conference football game and two non-conference men’s basketball games per team per season,” per SBD.
The SEC confirmed the new deal in a press release, with SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey lauding the announcement.
“This is a significant day for the Southeastern Conference and for the future of our member institutions,” Sankey stated. “Our agreement with ESPN will greatly enhance our ability to support our student-athletes in the years ahead and to further enrich the game day experience for SEC fans around the world.”
He added, “The broadcast industry’s intense and widespread interest in securing the SEC’s First Tier rights is a direct reflection of the sustained excellence achieved by our 14 member schools, and we are thrilled to have been able to maximize our current position of strength to benefit our student-athletes, the fans who go to our games and home viewers.”
More details on the agreement can be found here.
Henry Thornton is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him by email: [email protected] or on Twitter @HenryThornton95.
