Idle notes.

After signing a fifteen year deal with CBS last week, the SEC has locked up a deal with ESPN for the same amount of time. On Monday, the SEC and ESPN agreed to a fifteen year deal starting in the 2009-10 season, giving ESPN the rights to every SEC home football game not airing on CBS. Some details of the deal: ESPN/ESPN2 will televise at least 20 games per season, SEC football games will receive “unique national branding” as the SEC on ESPN, and ESPN Regional will produce syndicated telecasts, replacing Raycom Sports. The deal also gives ABC the semifinals and championship game of the SEC Basketball Tournament, which previously aired on CBS.
PGA Tour broadcasts on NBC will take a backseat to Notre Dame football. The Sports Business Journal reported earlier this week that NBC has forced the PGA Tour to move up the start times for two FedEx Cup playoff events. Third round coverage of the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship will move up from the normal Saturday window of 3-6 PM ET to 12:30-3:30 PM, to not conflict with NBC’s telecasts of Notre Dame home games. While PGA Tour ratings have cratered post-Tiger Woods‘ injury, Notre Dame football averaged a 1.9 rating on NBC last year, a record low.
Major League Baseball will debut a $65 million dollar ad campaign touting the upcoming baseball postseason. The ads will feature FOX and TBS personalities sitting “at a computer, narrating a blog entry that reflects their star persona and their enthusiasm for the playoffs.” At the end of the ad is the tagline “There is only one October”. Some of the familiar faces include FOX reality show personalities Randy Jackson and Jeff Foxworthy, TBS’ Bill Engvall and Frank Caliendo, and Family Guy‘s Seth Macfarlane voicing Stewie Griffin. In one version of the ads, Foxworthy says “Even a fifth grader knows, ‘There’s Only One October.'”

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