SEC Network timeline: The conference's journey to its own television channel

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- When the SEC and ESPN announce their lucrative SEC Network next Tuesday in Atlanta, it will mark the culmination of many years of consideration. The SEC will follow in the footsteps of the Big Ten, University of Texas and Pac-12 as major college sports properties with its own TV network.

For the SEC to do a network, it had to join with ESPN, which owns the majority of SEC football games through 2023-24. That kept the SEC from shopping a channel on the open market until then.

The plan is for the SEC Network to launch in August 2014 out of Charlotte. That is the year ESPN receives back all of the syndication rights it sublicensed to Fox Sports and Comcast.

How the SEC reached this point:

SEC Commissioner Mike Slive told The Birmingham News that the SEC is exploring a network once the conference's television contracts expire in 2009. This came after the Big Ten announced its network starting in 2007.

"There is an ego element to having your name on a channel," Slive said. "I think you're going to find the concept of the channel has been on the drawing board for most of the conferences. The question is really one of timing, when your own contract comes to terms so you can find out the market place."

SEC presidents and chancellors reiterated their intent to pursue a television channel. A main area of interest was keeping an eye on how the Big Ten Network fares with cable and revenue distribution when it debuts.

"If anything, there was more interest in a channel than there was before," Slive said.

By spring 2008, the SEC was coming off its second of seven straight BCS championships. The league posted a 2.7 rating on ESPN in 2008 -- the SEC's highest since Peyton Manning played in the conference in 1997 -- and was in TV talks with its CBS, ESPN and Lincoln Financial contracts expiring in 2009.

"College football is on an extraordinary run right now," Chuck Gerber, an ESPN executive vice president at the time, said in February 2008. "The six BCS conferences carry the load and the SEC has extraordinary football. Their fans' passion and zeal is second to none."

Gerber retired from ESPN in March 2008. One month later, he became the SEC's media consultant to handle TV negotiations. "It's nice to have someone like Chuck to guide us," then-Ole Miss Athletics Director Pete Boone said. "We're kind of creating a path through the wilderness here."

As SEC TV negotiations heated up, the conference treaded more cautiously about its own channel. At the time, distribution was a problem for the Big Ten, Mountain West and NFL networks.

They all fought public relations nightmares by showing games people wanted to watch but couldn't see. Leagues struggled to get their channel into more households due to disputes with large cable providers over pricing and distribution. Those are costs that distributors add to customers' cable and satellite bills.

"I think it would be fair to say we've learned from the startups, and that's why we're going to have all our I's and T's worked out before we do anything," said then-Mississippi State Athletics Director Larry Templeton, who later became an SEC consultant. "We're not going to put money over exposure."

At the time, the SEC's geographic footprint had a population of 57.8 million people (and far fewer cable households). The Big Ten had a population of 67.1 million people.

"It's a complex matrix," Slive said of a network. "We're in a different part of the country. We're a different league. So when we look at our league, we have to factor in other things that are different than others."

To keep the SEC from creating a network with another company, as the Big Ten did, ESPN gave its longest national rights agreement ever. Sports Business Journal placed the ESPN deal at $150 million per year over 15 years, plus $55 million annually over 15 years with CBS. The SEC nearly tripled its television revenue, setting a new industry standard.

"One could argue successfully that we've just been through maybe the greatest success in our history athletically," Slive said. "I would just tell you the timing was superb."

Slive, who initially wanted a network, said the SEC shunned one largely because of distribution headaches other conferences experienced and the revenue SEC schools would have lost by having to eliminate their own multi-media agreements. Television consultant Neal Pilson said ESPN and CBS wisely bought price stability with a longterm deal because prices increase with every renegotiation.

ESPN Regional Television created a quasi "SEC Network" by syndicating football games nationally through local television stations and regional cable networks. SEC presidents talked up the significance of getting games on in large areas such as Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Texas in order to attract out-of-state students.

ESPN eventually branded SEC games as "SEC on ESPN." The syndicated package ended the SEC's relationship with Raycom Sports, which showed SEC basketball since 1986 and football since 1992.

A big winner was SEC basketball, which saw its telecasts on ESPN triple. Florida had won national titles in 2006 and 2007. "We really felt we were woefully underexposed in basketball given our quality of play," Slive said. "We told them whatever we did, basketball would have to be a significant part of any agreement."

For ESPN, the deal kept most SEC football games on its networks and helped grow ESPNU, which started in 2005. At the time of the SEC deal, ESPNU was in 22 million homes nationally and not affiliated with Comcast, the nation's largest cable distributor. ESPNU is now in more than 73 million homes.

The SEC teams with XOS Technologies to create archived conduct for fans to see on the SEC's revamped Web site. A year earlier, XOS acquired Collegiate Images, the content distribution rights-holder for 11 of the 12 SEC schools.

The SEC set a goal of one day digitizing almost every football season for every SEC school. In the years to come, through Slive's wishes, ESPN created SEC-specific television documentaries through archived material. In 2011, the SEC started producing original video and written content on the SEC Digital Network.

"The possibilities are endless," SEC Associate Commissioner Mark Whitworth said in 2009 about the SEC Digital Network.

The Pac-10's potential expansion that would include Texas and Texas A&M got serious attention from SEC presidents. Florida President Bernie Machen said the SEC would be reactive and not proactive. Slive said the SEC would not be complacent and discuss expansion "on our terms"

Texas was exploring its own television network, creating unrest within the Big 12. South Carolina President Harris Pastides said he saw an opportunity for the SEC to expand into Texas "and maybe beyond there." Georgia President Michael Adams said he advised Slive that the SEC is in the "driver's seat."

Eventually, the Big 12 gave Texas what it wanted and the Pac-10 missed out on its major expansion play. But the possibility opened eyes within the SEC, which nearly worked its way into Texas by grabbing Texas A&M.

The quasi-SEC Network reached 78 million homes (67 percent of the U.S.) in the first year. The syndicated games were seen in eight of the top 10 U.S. TV markets and the SEC Network averaged a 1.3 rating (1.3 million households) per week.

Slive said he had no regrets choosing ESPN over a conference network, citing the value SEC schools retained by keeping their local television packages. "The (financial) number that's been attributed to us, and it's always the same in many articles, I think understates the value of our packages to our people," Slive said. "There's just more."

The Pac-12 expanded and got a new television deal with ESPN and Fox. The highest average annual TV value of conferences in 2011, according to the Sports Business Journal: Big Ten ($252 million), Pac-12 ($250 million), SEC ($205 million). Also, Texas had just launched a network with ESPN worth $300 million over 20 years and the Pac-12 was planning to launch a national TV network and six regional cable networks.

The Birmingham News reported the SEC had signaled interest to ESPN to evaluate changes that could bring more exposure and money. The ever-increasing rights fees in college sports got the SEC's attention.

Slive declined to say if he now had interest in an SEC channel. Said Burke Magnus, ESPN senior vice president of college sports programming: "I'm not sitting here telling you (ESPN's 15-year contract with the SEC) rules out an SEC channel for the rest of time. But I also think this deal is working out very, very positively for us and them."

Amid concerns the Big 12 was crumbling, the SEC added Texas A&M and Missouri. That gave the SEC states with approximately 30.8 million people between them. The state of Texas -- clearly the larger of the two -- had four of the top 13 growing metropolitan areas in the country.

The more TV markets a conference is in, the greater the chances of securing widespread distribution and strong value for a conference channel. Without expanding, the SEC couldn't dramatically increase its television value for more than a decade because of its contracts with ESPN and CBS. Expansion opened up contractual clauses to renegotiate and fueled speculation that the SEC was reconsidering a television network.

The Birmingham News reported the SEC and ESPN had engaged in preliminary discussions about creating a channel.

"We think we have a lot of interest in our league that's not yet available," said Machen, Florida's president. "We think the public would like to see more of our conference and I think we could make that available to them. It's going to take awhile -- at least a year -- before it will all get put together."

By then, the Big Ten Network's distribution problems had been alleviated. Comcast came on board in June 2008. The Big Ten Network is available in more than 90 million homes in the U.S. and Canada. The SEC's geographic footprint had grown from 21 million cable homes to 30 million, if TV networks believe that Texas A&M carries all of Texas.

Times change. ESPN signed the SEC to prevent an SEC channel. Next week in Atlanta, they will officially team up for one and tie their marriage and value tighter together than ever before.

E-mail: jsolomon@al.com. Follow @jonsol