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Charter finalizing deal with ESPN to carry SEC Network [Montgomery Advertiser, Ala. :: ]
[July 30, 2014]

Charter finalizing deal with ESPN to carry SEC Network [Montgomery Advertiser, Ala. :: ]


(Montgomery Advertiser (AL) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) July 30--College football fans in much of the state of Alabama will not miss out on any of the upcoming SEC football season as Charter Communications, a major telecommunications provider in the state, is finalizing a deal with ESPN to carry the SEC Network in time for its launch.



"We have an agreement that we are currently finalizing with ESPN and we will have the SEC Network for its Aug. 14 launch," a Charter Communications spokesman said.

Charter is a major provider in the state of Alabama, including the Montgomery and Birmingham markets. Birmingham has been the top television market for college football for 13 straight years, drawing an averaged 9.2 rating, the highest ever for the market, this past year.


Auburn's home opener with Arkansas at 3 p.m. Aug. 30, Alabama's home game with Florida Atlanta at 11 a.m. Sept. 6, and Troy's game at Georgia at 11 a.m. Sept. 20 are three of the 16 games that will be shown on the SEC Network in just the first four weeks of the season.

The SEC Network will televise 45 football games and more than 100 men's basketball games, 60 women's basketball games and 75 baseball games in its first year. Live events from the SEC's non-revenue sports will also be televised and streamed digitally.

Other programming will include the weekly SEC Nation traveling pregame show, which will be hosted by Joe Territore. SEC Nation will debut from Columbia, South Carolina on Aug. 28 when the Gamecocks host Texas A&M as part of a doubleheader on the network with Vanderbilt hosting Temple in the nightcap.

The Paul Finebaum Show, one of the most listened to radio programs in the SEC, will be simulcast on weekday afternoons.

SEC Storied will be a film series dedicated to SEC institutions and their pasts. Bo, Barkley and the Big Hurt, a film documenting the short time when Bo Jackson, Charles Barkley and Frank Thomas were all at Auburn, is one of the upcoming films.

The addition of Charter, which has more than 5.7 million customers in 29 states, brings the SEC Network's distribution up to approximately 65.7 million households. ESPN has targeted the 80-90 million range for distribution for the new network.

Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks signed on to carry the SEC Network last week and deals are also in place with Comcast, Dish Network, Cox Media and AT&T U-Verse.

DirecTV remains the major provider yet to reach a deal to this point, though the company told FoxSports.com it is "quite hopeful" a deal will be in place soon.

According to Sports Business Daily, distributors are paying $1.40 per subscriber per month for the channel within the SEC's 11-state footprint and $0.25 per month outside of it. The channel will be on expanded basic tiers within SEC territory and digital basic outside of it.

That level of pricing means the SEC Network, the product of a 20-year agreement between ESPN and the SEC, could generate as much as the Big Ten Network and Pac-12 Network combined.

More details to come on this breaking story, which was first reported by AL.com ___ (c)2014 the Montgomery Advertiser (Montgomery, Ala.) Visit the Montgomery Advertiser (Montgomery, Ala.) at www.montgomeryadvertiser.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

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