SEC football is going to look at lot different this season.
For nearly 30 years, the conference’s marquee games were broadcast on CBS. Starting this year, though, the conference has a new television deal with ESPN that will move the biggest games of the week to ABC.
ESPN announced Wednesday at Disney’s annual Upfront presentation for advertisers the first set of games that have been chosen to air on ABC. Those games are as follows:
ESPN will announce the rest of its broadcast schedule for the first three weeks of the college football season on May 30.
CBS first broadcast SEC football in 1996, and the weekly game at 3:30 p.m. ET with the network's iconic intro theme became an indelible part of the sport. But that partnership came to an end when the SEC agreed in 2020 to a 10-year broadcast deal with ESPN that would begin with the 2024 season. The deal is worth $300 million annually (for a total of $3 billion over the length of the contract), which is more than five times the $55 million annual value of the previous deal with CBS.
Fans will still get to watch college football on CBS in the 3:30 window, though. It’s just that the network will trade the sun-soaked stadiums of the SEC for the gray skies of the Big Ten.
DAN GARTLAND
Dan Gartland writes Sports Illustrated’s flagship daily newsletter, SI:AM, and is SI’s pro wrestling editor. Dan holds a degree in Communications and Media Studies from Fordham University.
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