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Posted on 10/22/26 at 12:32 pm to Old Sarge
quote:
He had no choice after letting in Utranny and Sooner and then getting slapped around by the networks when they told him they would give him no more money for the additions
True that
Now the word on the street is that U of Miami is shopping for a new conference and is looking at the Big X and the SEC
just what we need more quality teams, cause we don’t have enough
Posted on 10/22/26 at 1:15 pm to tBrand
quote:Many reasons, I'll try to explain just some of them. Leave the ridiculous scheduling aside and start with this.
How so?
The SEC is college football’s ratings leader, yet the Big Ten earns significantly more for its media rights. Sports Business Journal reported average audiences in 2025 of approximately 4.9 million viewers per SEC game, compared with 2.8 million for the Big Ten. Yet the Big Ten’s media deal is worth an estimated $1.2 billion annually, compared with roughly $710 million for the SEC. Sankey was responsible for that deal.
The difference lies in how the conferences sold their media rights. The Big Ten split its football schedule among Fox, CBS, and NBC, giving each network a premium broadcast window to anchor its Saturday lineup. Competition among three major buyers helped drive up the value of the package. Sankey instead decided in his infinite wisdom to keep the SEC’s primary football package with ESPN rather than put those rights on the open market for competing networks to bid on.
The SEC announced its ABC/ESPN deal in December 2020, before Texas and Oklahoma joined the conference. Their arrival created substantial additional value for ESPN, but the SEC captured only part of that value, receiving approximately $42 million annually through a pro-rata increase under the existing contract - by contrast each of the existing 14 schools received ~$53M in total league distribution the previous year. Another short end of the stick we can thank Sankey for.
Taking the expanded conference to the open market could have attracted competing bids and potentially secured a higher price, but Sankey had already committed the SEC to ESPN, limiting the conference’s ability to capitalize on that opportunity. Though the new deal did give the SEC a substantial raise (even before Texas and Oklahoma joined), the Big Ten’s contract proved considerably more lucrative despite its lower average viewership, illustrating how Sankey’s decision to commit the SEC to a single network cost the conference.
This post was edited on 10/22/26 at 1:16 pm
Posted on 10/22/26 at 1:35 pm to LSUnKaty
Cool AI slop.
B1G and SEC viewership numbers were virtually even before Texas/Oklahoma joined the SEC. There was nothing Sankey could point to and say "we beat the B1G in viewership, so give us more."
SEC didn't sell its content piece-wise because ESPN already owned tier 2 and down (the vast majority of SEC content) via the 2013 ESPN/SEC Network contract. Which is 20 years, signed by SECRant patron saint Mike Slice. Who by the way got told to frick off by CBS when he asked for pro-rata increase after Texas A&M and Missouri joined (LMAO CBS literally said those two schools are worth nothing). The relationship was frayed and when the 3:30 contact was up, CBS walked. ESPN was all the SEC had.
And, again, for the "muh escalator clause" people, what leverage did Sankey have to force an escalator trigger for new teams? The conversation would've gone like this:
SEC: "We want more money if we add new teams."
ESPN: "We just took your $55M contract for the 3:30 slot and put $300 on top of it. frick you. You have no where else to go. And if you did have the clause, we simply would never move Texas/OU/FSU/Clemson to the SEC while it's active."
quote:
The SEC is college football’s ratings leader
B1G and SEC viewership numbers were virtually even before Texas/Oklahoma joined the SEC. There was nothing Sankey could point to and say "we beat the B1G in viewership, so give us more."
quote:
The Big Ten split its football schedule among Fox, CBS, and NBC, giving each network a premium broadcast window to anchor its Saturday lineup.
SEC didn't sell its content piece-wise because ESPN already owned tier 2 and down (the vast majority of SEC content) via the 2013 ESPN/SEC Network contract. Which is 20 years, signed by SECRant patron saint Mike Slice. Who by the way got told to frick off by CBS when he asked for pro-rata increase after Texas A&M and Missouri joined (LMAO CBS literally said those two schools are worth nothing). The relationship was frayed and when the 3:30 contact was up, CBS walked. ESPN was all the SEC had.
And, again, for the "muh escalator clause" people, what leverage did Sankey have to force an escalator trigger for new teams? The conversation would've gone like this:
SEC: "We want more money if we add new teams."
ESPN: "We just took your $55M contract for the 3:30 slot and put $300 on top of it. frick you. You have no where else to go. And if you did have the clause, we simply would never move Texas/OU/FSU/Clemson to the SEC while it's active."
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