About a year after the news was first reported, ESPN has officially acquired the SEC television package currently held by CBS.
ESPN and the SEC announced Thursday a new ten-year media rights deal for approximately 15 football and eight men’s basketball games per year starting in 2024. The new deal will run until the conclusion of ESPN’s pre-existing SEC rights deal in 2034.
The ESPN family of networks will own rights to every SEC football and men’s basketball game over the term of the deal. ABC will carry at least one SEC football game per week, including some on Saturday Night Football, and also air the SEC Championship Game.
Notably, ESPN does not plan to prioritize the mid-afternoon window — or broadcast television — for the SEC “game of the week,” instead scheduling games “in the window and on the network that best maximizes exposure.”
According to Sports Business Daily, which first reported the agreement last December, the package is worth in the neighborhood of $300 million per year. CBS is currently paying $55 million per year for the package and is expected to hold onto the rights for the three seasons remaining on its contract.
While the full deal still has years to go before kicking in, ESPN will as soon as next season begin airing up to 14 non-conference football and 20 non-conference men’s basketball games per year on ESPN+. The platform will be able to stream one such football game per school and up to two men’s basketball games.
The ESPN-SEC deal is the latest major media rights agreement announced since the wave of cancellations and postponements that decimated the industry in March. Also announced this year was Turner Sports’ extension with Major League Baseball and the NFL’s multi-year extension with Amazon.
